Site being indexed by Google before it has launched
-
We are currently coming towards the end of migrating one of our retail sites over to magento. To our horror, we find out today that some pages are already being indexed by Google, and we have started receiving orders through new site. Do you have any suggestions for what may have caused this? Or similarly, what the best solution would be to de-index ourselves? We most recently excluded anything with a certain parameter from robots.txt - could this being implemented incorrectly have caused this issue?
Thanks
-
Google has ignored a robots.txt for my site because it thought we were "hiding" important content.
Depending on your site structure, putting a "no index" tag on your page is also a good idea. Doing that as pages are built can prevent it (better) from being indexed in the first place. Then you remove the tag when you are ready to go live. And, submit your updated sitemap via GWT when you finish your move so Google will know what pages to index.
-
I would be very careful on how you manage this right now. It all depends on the old and new urls. If this is something in Dev staging, like http://dev.examplesite.com, then it is alright to do everything possible to clean them up. But if the new urls are going to be the new final urls, then you have to be careful.
The best thing you could do right now would be to password protect the new site. That way there isn't a chance of anything getting to it.
All it takes is Google finding one link to the site then it will crawl from there.
-
Exclude the whole new site using robots.txt, and remove the current new site-indexed URL's within Webmaster Tools: Optimization > Remove URL's.
When the new site is ready to launch, undo these removed URL's using the "Reinclude" button, also found within the Remove URL's section of Webmaster Tools. Do this prior to 301'ing the old site pages to the new, and you will probably wish to announce the new site launch via social media as well to encourage indexation. +1'ing a page is considered the fastest way to get it indexed.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can adding thousands of new indexable URLs to my site at once be a problem?
Hi everyone, I am currently working on a project that will quickly add thousands of new indexable URLs to my site. For context, the site currently has over a million indexable pages. Is there any danger of adding a few thousand URLs at once to the site? Could it potentially affect crawlability/SEO/other pages? Thank you!
Technical SEO | | StevenLevine0 -
Site Not Being Indexed
Hey Everyone - I have a site that is being treated strangely by google (at least strange to me) The site has 24 pages in the sitemap - submitted to WMT'S over 30 days ago I've manually triggered google to crawl the homepage and all connecting links as well and submitted a couple individually. Google has been parked the indexing at 14 of the 24 pages. None of the unindexed URL's have Noindex or follow tags on them - they are clearly and easily linked to from other places on the site. The site is a brand new domain, has no manual penalty history and in my research has no reason to be considered spammy. 100% unique handwritten content I cannot figure out why google isn't indexing these pages. Has anyone encountered this before? Know any solutions? Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | CRO_first0 -
Google crawling but not indexing for no apparent reason
Client's site went secure about two months ago and chose root domain as rel canonical (so site redirects to https://rootdomain.com (no "www"). Client is seeing the site recognized and indexed by Google about every 3-5 days and then not indexed until they request a "Fetch". They've been going through this annoying process for about 3 weeks now. Not sure if it's a server issue or a domain issue. They've done work to enhance .htaccess (i.e., the redirects) and robots.txt. If you've encountered this issue and have a recommendation or have a tech site or person resource to recommend, please let me know. Google search engine results are respectable. One option would be to do nothing but then would SERPs start to fall without requesting a new Fetch? Thanks in advance, Alan
Technical SEO | | alankoen1230 -
Site Launching, not SEO Ready
Hi, So, we have a site going up on Monday, that in many ways hasn't been gotten ready for search. The focus has been on functionality and UX rather than search, which is fair enough. As a result, I have a big list of things for the developer to complete after launch (like sorting out duplicate pages and adding titles that aren't "undefined" etc.). So, my question is whether it would be better to noindex the site until all the main things are sorted before essentially presenting search engines with the best version we can, or to have the site be indexed (duplicate pages and all) and sort these issues "live", as it were? Would either method be advisable over the other, or are there any other solutions? I just want to ensure we start ranking as well as possible as quickly as possible and don't know which way to go. Thanks so much!
Technical SEO | | LeahHutcheon0 -
Why has Google stopped indexing my content?
Mystery of the day! Back on December 28th, there was a 404 on the sitemap for my website. This lasted 2 days before I noticed and fixed. Since then, Google has not indexed my content. However, the majority of content prior to that date still shows up in the index. The website is http://www.indieshuffle.com/. Clues: Google reports no current issues in Webmaster tools Two reconsideration requests have returned "no manual action taken" When new posts are detected as "submitted" in the sitemap, they take 2-3 days to "index" Once "indexed," they cannot be found in search results unless I include url:indieshuffle.com The sitelinks that used to pop up under a basic search for "Indie Shuffle" are now gone I am using Yoast's SEO tool for Wordpress (and have been for years) Before December 28th, I was doing 90k impressions / 4.5k clicks After December 28th, I'm now doing 8k impressions / 1.3k clicks Ultimately, I'm at a loss for a possible explanation. Running an SEOMoz audit comes up with warnings about rel=canonical and a few broken links (which I've fixed in reaction to the report). I know these things often correct themselves, but two months have passed now, and it continues to get progressively worse. Thanks, Jason
Technical SEO | | indieshuffle0 -
Help: Google Time Spent Downloading a Page, My Site is Slow
All, My site: http://www.nationalbankruptcyforum.com shows an average time spent downloading a page of 1,489 (in milliseconds) We've had spikes of well over 3,000 and lows of around 980 (all according to WMT). I understand that this is really slow. Does anyone have some suggestions as to how I could improve load times? Constructive criticism welcomed and encouraged.
Technical SEO | | JSOC0 -
Adding Google +1 To My Site
This may seem like a silly question, but I had my site designed by a third party and I don't know how to find this info. I want to add Google +1 button to my site. I've already added the script that makes it work in my , but don't know how to add the to the part of my site I'd like the icon to appear. If you take a look at my site, http://www.youdrivethesuccess.com/, you will see the twitter and facebook icons that follow you around the site in the top right of the page. I'd like to drop in the +1 right next to them, but I don't know how to get to it. How do I access this on the server? What section of my FTP do these lil icons live? A folder? Any direction is greatly appreciated...thanks.
Technical SEO | | brentmitchell0 -
.CA site same as .com site - are both necessary?
Dear Friend, We representa a major national brand in the auto care industry, and they have locations in both US and Canada. There is a primary content site at .com that we have duplicated at .ca. We are hosting the .ca site on a separate IP on a server in Canada - but by in large it is the same site. (there are some minor changes we made to change US English to Canadian English - though minor. When we search Google.ca we generally see strong search results for the .com site, but rarely, if ever any evidence of rankings for the .ca site. The .com site was launched several years ago about 18 months before the .ca site. Why doesn't Google.ca show the .ca site? Is this an issue of duplicate content, and Google.ca simply shows the .com version which it knew about first? Are we wasting our time, money and efforts having both? Thanks, Tim ps. this isn't about location. We use a separate site to locate local shops, and have coordinated that well with Google Places, and when looking for local auto care - we do well in both US and Canada. The sites described above are largetl content sites.
Technical SEO | | lunavista-comm0