Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How to safely exclude search result pages from Google's index?
-
Hello everyone,
I'm wondering what's the best way to prevent/block search result pages from being indexed by Google. The way search works on my site is that search form generates URLs like:
/index.php?blah-blah-search-results-blahI wanted to block everything of that sort, but how do I do it without blocking /index.php ?
Thanks in advance and have a great day everyone!
-
Hi Louise,
If you can ID the parameters, you can also look at blocking these in Webmaster Tools. This page explains more. As with any blocking of URLs, of course, proceed with caution.
-
I agree that can be effective. The reason I suggested the robots.txt is because Louise mentioned "blocking and preventing" as an objective. Robots.txt are particularly useful in the example where results from a search bar or something of that nature is involved. A NOINDEX, FOLLOW will not prevent bots from getting tired and dizzy, whereas the robots.txt can "block and prevent" bots from crawling certain parameters.
With all of that said, I think it is important to understand whether you need the bots to crawl and not index (in which case Spencer's answer is correct), or if you need to prevent bots from crawling the parameters altogether.
Hope that is more clear
-
I'm not sure that robots.txt is effective when url parameters are involved.
I would just add a meta robots tag to the head section of the search results template:
-
If you are able to identify a url parameter, you may excluded them using robots.txt. Here is a great resource on Robots.txt - http://moz.com/learn/seo/robotstxt
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
-
How to track google auto search suggestion click?
Hello Guys, In google.co.uk when I search SEL and google gives me option of different different sites and when I click on any one site then that click tracking I need. I have attached the screenshot to understand easily. Is it possible to track such things or possible via server logs etc? TV99h
Reporting & Analytics | | micey1231 -
Google Analytics reporting traffic for 404 pages
Hi guys, Unique issue with google analytics reporting for one of our sites. GA is reporting sessions for 404 pages (landing pages, organic traffic) e.g. for this page: http://www.milkandlove.com.au/breastfeeding-dresses/index.php the page is currently a 404 page but GA (see screenshot) is reporting organic traffic (to the landing page). Does anyone know any reasons why this is happening? Cheers. http://www.milkandlove.com.au/breastfeeding-dresses/index.php GK0zDzj.jpg
Reporting & Analytics | | jayoliverwright2 -
Google Analytics Goal/Event/SOMETHING to show only Wordpress "Posts", not pages, etc
Hi all, Our site is build on Wordpress and formerly the post URL's had the typical date format at the beginning. This made it easy for me to look at, for example, all search traffic to the blog. I would just view URL's containing /2014/ and /2015/ and boom. We have since removed the dates from the URL's with proper redirects etc, which is great, but now I can't figure out a way to look at ONLY the blog in GA. I like to track a KPI of 'search visits to blog posts' and I can't figure out how to now. Can I set up a GA event that only fires when the post type template for blog posts loads? Some other solution? I'm lost here, and there's gotta be a good way to do it...
Reporting & Analytics | | 3DR0 -
How to get multiple pages to appear under main url in search - photo attached
How do you get a site to have an organized site map under the main url when it is searched as in the example photo? SIte-map.png
Reporting & Analytics | | marketingmediamanagement0 -
Referral Traffic from Google
Hello, I have a question about my company's new website. I've worked in SEO and studied Google Analytics results for a few years now but have never really come across something like this. I started in this position in January of this year and when I started breaking down the traffic sources in Google Analytics, I noticed most of the traffic was coming from Google.com as a referral source. I had never seen Google.com as a referral source before so I looked into options for what it could be. It was not a paid ad and our organic traffic was coming through in Analytics, Before I could get any further, our new website was launched (we switched CRM's to WordPress) and the referral traffic from google went from 2,966 in January of 2015 to 22 in February 2015. for more comparison, in February of 2014, the referral traffic from Google was 2,496. I expected a drop when we switched CRM's but we correctly re-directed all pages and created a new sitemap and our organic traffic is up since the switch (not enough to cover drop in referral). I thought at first this had to do with our Google sellers account being de-activated when we made the switch, but I quickly fixed this over a month ago and no change. I'm wondering if anyone has ever seen Google.com come through as a referral source in Google Analytics and if they we're able to figure out what it actually was. This would be a great help! Thank you, Alex
Reporting & Analytics | | RASEO1 -
Whats 'Other' in Google Analytics (in Acquisition)
When i look in GA under Channels (under Acquisition) 'other' is listed What is 'other' ? I have been told its other unidentified channels as they did not allow 3rd party cookies or surfers were in anonymous/private mode. Other is usually organic traffic that couldn't be identified for the aformentioned reasons. This data is encrypted and available but it violates Google guidelines as they are not allowed to pass personal info//data to third parties so it is automatically filtered. But they are not 'Not Provided' (since that still shows under organic) but is usually/mainly some form of organic visits. Hence Seo can take credit for much of that traffic, is this correct ? Many Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Is it possible to use Google Tag Manager to pass a user’s text input into a form field to Google analytics?
Hey Everyone, I finally figured out how to use auto event tracking with Google Tag Manager, but didn't get the data I wanted. I want to see what users are typing into the search field on my site (the URL structure of my site isn't set up properly to use GA's built-in site search tracking). So, I set up the form submit event tracking in Google Tag Manager and used the following as my event tracking parameters: Category: Search Action: Search Value When I test and look in Google Analytics I just see: "search" and "search value." I wanted to see the text that I searched on my site. Not just the Action and Category of the event.... Is what I'm trying to do even possible? Do I need to set up a different event tracking parameter? Thanks everyone!
Reporting & Analytics | | DaveGuyMan0 -
Easiest way to get out of Google local results?
Odd one this, but what's the easiest way to remove a website from the Google local listings? Would removing all the Google map listings do the job? A client of ours is suffering massively since the Google update in the middle of last month. Previously they would appear no1 or no2 in the local results and normally 1 or 2 in the organic results. However, since the middle of last month any time they rank on the first page for a local result, their organic result has dropped massively to at least page 4. If I set my location as something different in google, say 100 miles away, they then rank well for the organic listings (obviously not appearing for local searches). When I change it back to my current location the organic listing is gone and they are back to ranking for the local. Since the middle of July the traffic from search engines has dropped about 65%. All the organic rankings remain as strong as ever just not in the areas where they want to get customers from!! The idea is to remove the local listing and get the organics reranking as the ctr on those is much much higher. On a side note, anyone else notice very poor ctr on google local listings? Maybe users feel they are adverts thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | ccgale0