Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Best way to block a sub-domain from being indexed

    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.

    Best way to block a sub-domain from being indexed

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    3
    4
    2523
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • JohnW-UK
      JohnW-UK last edited by

      Hello,

      The search engines have indexed a sub-domain I did not want indexed its on

      old.domain.com and dev.domain.com - I was going to password them but is there a best practice way to block them.

      My main domain default robots.txt says :-

      Sitemap: http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml

      global

      User-agent: *
      Disallow: /cgi-bin/
      Disallow: /wp-admin/
      Disallow: /wp-includes/
      Disallow: /wp-content/plugins/
      Disallow: /wp-content/cache/
      Disallow: /wp-content/themes/
      Disallow: /trackback/
      Disallow: /feed/
      Disallow: /comments/
      Disallow: /category//
      Disallow: */trackback/
      Disallow: */feed/
      Disallow: /comments/
      Disallow: /
      ?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • KristinaKledzik
        KristinaKledzik last edited by

        Hi,

        CleverPhD has some interesting ideas with robots.txt and Google Webmaster Tools, but simply password protecting all dev pages should keep pages out of Google's index. There's no best practice here, since a password wall will keep Googlebot out on its own.

        To be doubly safe, you can also include a meta noindex tag on dev pages.

        Keep in mind that once a page is in Google's index, it's going to take awhile for it to leave (unless you use CleverPhD's method). But, having a blank page in Google's index really isn't all that bad. It's there, but it won't rank for much.

        Hope this helps,

        Kristina

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • KristinaKledzik
          KristinaKledzik @CleverPhD last edited by

          I've never tried a method like this - FreshFireOne, did you?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • CleverPhD
            CleverPhD last edited by

            First and foremost when you finish all this - password protect your dev instances.  A url will leak out eventually and then this happens.  I know it is a PIA, but it is worth it.

            To remove subdomains.  Go into GWT and register the subdomains as separate websites in GWT.  Create a robots.txt for each subdomain (not the one you mention, you need a robots that is specific to that subdomain that disallows all files.  If you cant do that, have your subdomains include a noindex meta tag on all pages.   You have to be careful with this as you do not want to push out your dev. robots.txt or the noindex meta tags to your production server, but it can be done.  Talk to your devs.    Then go into GWT and use the URL removal tool.  Just leave it blank and it will remove the whole site.

            Poof.  Gone.  You can then watch the GWT accounts.  They will show errors for the dev site like "Severe health issues are found on your site - Some important page has been removed by request."  This is a good error as it confirms that that subdomain is removed.

            We actually used this not on a dev site but on our www1 server that was indexed.  We use a load balancer with multiple copies of the site.  www1 was completing with www.   Using this above did the trick.

            KristinaKledzik 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • 1 / 1
            • First post
              Last post

            Got a burning SEO question?

            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


            Start my free trial


            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.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • gaiaslastlaugh

              Does redirecting from a "bad" domain "infect" the new domain?

              Hi all, So a complicated question that requires a little background. I bought unseenjapan.com to serve as a legitimate news site about a year ago. Social media and content growth has been good. Unfortunately, one thing I didn't realize when I bought this domain was that it used to be a porn site. I've managed to muck out some of the damage already - primarily, I got major vendors like Macafee and OpenDNS to remove the "porn" categorization, which has unblocked the site at most schools & locations w/ public wifi. The sticky bit, however, is Google. Google has the domain filtered under SafeSearch, which means we're losing - and will continue to lose - a ton of organic traffic. I'm trying to figure out how to deal with this, and appeal the decision. Unfortunately, Google's Reconsideration Request form currently doesn't work unless your site has an existing manual action against it (mine does not). I've also heard such requests, even if I did figure out how to make them, often just get ignored for months on end. Now, I have a back up plan. I've registered unseen-japan.com, and I could just move my domain over to the new domain if I can't get this issue resolved. It would allow me to be on a domain with a clean history while not having to change my brand. But if I do that, and I set up 301 redirects from the former domain, will it simply cause the new domain to be perceived as an "adult" domain by Google? I.e., will the former URL's bad reputation carry over to the new one? I haven't made a decision one way or the other yet, so any insights are appreciated.

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gaiaslastlaugh
              0
            • rayatarh545123

              Why some domains and sub-domains have same DA, but some others don't?

              Hi I noticed for some blog providers in my country, which provide a sub-domian address for their blogs. the sub-domain authority is exactly as the main domain. Whereas, for some other blog providers  every subdomain has its different and lower authority. for example "ffff.blog.ir" and "blog.ir" both have domain authority of 60. It noteworthy to mention that the "ffff.blog.ir" does not even exist! This is while mihanblog.com and hfilm.mihanblog.com has diffrent page authority.

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rayatarh545123
              0
            • intentionally

              Unique domains vs. single domain for UGC sites?

              Working on a client project - a UGC community that has a DTC model as well as a white label model. Is it categorically better to have them all under the same domain? Trying to figure which is better: XXX,XXX pages on one site vs. A smaller XXX,XXX pages on one site and XX,XXX pages on 10-20 other sites all pointing to the primary site. The thinking on the second was that those domains would likely achieve high DA as well as the primary, and would passing their value to the primary. Thoughts? Any other considerations we should be thinking about?

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | intentionally
              0
            • steviephil

              Best way to noindex an image?

              Hi all, A client wanted a few pages noindexed, which was no problem using the meta robots noindex tag. However they now want associated images removed, some of which still appear on pages that they still want indexed. I added the images to their robots.txt file a few weeks ago (probably over a month ago actually) but they're all still showing when you do an image search. What's the best way to noindex them for good, and how do I go about implementing it? Many thanks, Steve

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | steviephil
              0
            • nicole.healthline

              Best way to permanently remove URLs from the Google index?

              We have several subdomains we use for testing applications. Even if we block with robots.txt, these subdomains still appear to get indexed (though they show as blocked by robots.txt. I've claimed these subdomains and requested permanent removal, but it appears that after a certain time period (6 months)? Google will re-index (and mark them as blocked by robots.txt). What is the best way to permanently remove these from the index? We can't use login to block because our clients want to be able to view these applications without needing to login. What is the next best solution?

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline
              0
            • HrThomsen

              Best practice for removing indexed internal search pages from Google?

              Hi Mozzers I know that it’s best practice to block Google from indexing internal search pages, but what’s best practice when “the damage is done”? I have a project where a substantial part of our visitors and income lands on an internal search page, because Google has indexed them (about 3 %). I would like to block Google from indexing the search pages via the meta noindex,follow tag because: Google Guidelines: “Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don't add much value for users coming from search engines.” http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769 Bad user experience The search pages are (probably) stealing rankings from our real landing pages Webmaster Notification: “Googlebot found an extremely high number of URLs on your site” with links to our internal search results I want to use the meta tag to keep the link juice flowing. Do you recommend using the robots.txt instead? If yes, why? Should we just go dark on the internal search pages, or how shall we proceed with blocking them? I’m looking forward to your answer! Edit: Google have currently indexed several million of our internal search pages.

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HrThomsen
              0
            • JohnW-UK

              One Way Links vs Two Way Links

              Hi, Was speaking to a client today and got asked how damaging two way links are. i.e. domaina.com links to domainb.com and domainb.com links back to domaina.com. I need a nice simple layman's explanation of if/how damaging they are compared to one way links. And please don't answer with you lose link juice as I have a job explaining link juice.... I am explaining things to a non techie! Thank you!!

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnW-UK
              0
            • SeoSheikh

              Should I buy a .co domain if my preferred .com and .co.uk domain are taken by other companies?

              I'm looking to boost my website ranking and drive more traffic to it using a keyword rich domain name. I want to have my nearest city followed by the keyword "seo" in the domain name but the .co.uk and .com have already been taken. Should I take the plunge and buy .co at a higher price? What options do I have? Also whilst we're on domains and URL's is it best to separate keywords in url's with a (_) or a (-)? Many thanks for any help with this matter. Alex

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SeoSheikh
              0

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            • Digital Marketers
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter

            Access all your tools in one place. Whether you're tracking progress or analyzing data, everything you need is at your fingertips.

            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.