Removing secure subdomain from google index
-
we've noticed over the last few months that Google is not honoring our main website's robots.txt file. We have added rules to disallow secure pages such as:
Disallow: /login.cgis Disallow: /logout.cgis Disallow: /password.cgis Disallow: /customer/* We have noticed that google is crawling these secure pages and then duplicating our complete ecommerce website across our secure subdomain in the google index (duplicate content) https://secure.domain.com/etc. Our webmaster recently implemented a specific robots.txt file for the secure subdomain disallow all however, these duplicated secure pages remain in the index.
User-agent: *
Disallow: /My question is should i request Google to remove these secure urls through Google Webmaster Tools? If so, is there any potential risk to my main ecommerce website? We have 8,700 pages currently indexed into google and would not want to risk any ill effects to our website. How would I submit this request in the URL Removal tools specifically? would inputting https://secure.domain.com/ cover all of the urls? We do not want any secure pages being indexed to the index and all secure pages are served on the secure.domain example. Please private message me for specific details if you'd like to see an example. Thank you,
-
I think you're saying you have
mainwebsitethatsellsstuff.com
securesubdomainof.mainwebsitethatsellsstuff.comand that you want to keep the main domain, and remove the subdomain, and that it's not a case of http vs https with the URL otherwise being the same, right?
You can verify a subdomain in Google Webmaster Tools and remove the entire subdomain. I've had to do this for a dev subdomain that accidentally got indexed. I was able to keep the main domain, and remove the subdomain. The key is to verify that subdomain, and leave the main domain alone, provided I'm understanding your question correctly.
-
Do you need 8700 pages served on https? Protocol should transition when a page is ok to serve unsecured. Generally you would only serve pages on https that contain confidential information and have general content on http. If you look at the site and ask how many of those pages can a no logged in user see? If they are not protected by authorization then they do not need https as the content is publically viewable.
-
URL Removal would not be a good action in this case. According to Google, when they remove the https version, they will also remove the http version along with it.
How long ago did you implement the robots.txt exclusion for the https pages? It will take Google some time to pull this from their index. To help you can add the following on your https pages which will keep the pages from continuing to be cached:
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
-
PDFs With No Index Contribute To Page Ranks?
I have a question I'm hoping you can help me with. If I upload a PDF and add a no index under the meta robots index so that the PDF doesn't appear in search results when I send people the link to this PDF, does it still contribute to my site traffic/ranking etc? Basically we are deciding whether to put some PDFs with pricing options etc onto our website or on a google drive. We will be sending the links to potential clients. If visitors clicking on the link would still help with increasing traffic and increasing our google rank (without that PDF showing in results) we thought this might be the best solution.
Algorithm Updates | | whiterabbitnz0 -
The Google Algo update that happened 1-8 is KILLING my rankings
Does anyone know what happened?? I have a great website, we ranked very highly for a slew of industry keywords, #1 in most of our top-money kws....and our keywords have been in freefall since the update. Help?!
Algorithm Updates | | Sean_Gutermuth0 -
Google SERPs showing blog comments in Answer Box?
I was recently researching Schema markup for local businesses and I was presented with an Answer Box that used blog comments as answers (at least I feel that's what they were attempting to show). This is what is says currently when I search for "schema markup hours" (screenshot also attached): 12 thoughts on “How to Use Schema Markup for Local SEO” Lauren says: March 11, 2013 at 2:22 pm. ... souleye says: March 11, 2013 at 3:29 pm. ... Daniel Bennett says: March 11, 2013 at 8:51 pm. ... sammy. says: ... Nathan says: March 11, 2013 at 11:53 pm. ... Rishav says: March 12, 2013 at 5:51 am. ... Paul Sherland says: ... keyword removed says: Right now it shows the time and date of the comment, but is this something that's new or has it been around? Thanks in advance! tp5y1od.png
Algorithm Updates | | TomBinga11250 -
Am I the only one experiencing this Google SERP problem?
I perform Google searches every single day, sometimes several times in a day. These searches have nothing to do with being a marketer--they're simply as a consumer, researcher, person who needs a question answered, or in other words: a typical person. For about the past month or so, I have been unsuccessful at finding what I'm looking for on the first try EVERY SINGLE TIME. Yes, I mean it--every single time. I'm left either going all the way to the third page, clicking dozens of results and retuning to the SERPs, or having to start over with a differently worded query. This is far too often to be a coincidence. Has this been happening to anymore else? I know there was a recent significant algorithm update, right? I always look at algorithm updates through the eyes of an SEO, but I'm currently looking at it through the eyes for an average searcher, and I'm frustrated! It's been like trying to find something on Bing!
Algorithm Updates | | UnderRugSwept0 -
Is it normal to receive 2 mails from Google?
I filed a reconsideration request that was answered in less than a week. Subsequently I was told that no manual penalty was in place but various algorithm factors might be causing my heavy drops in ranking. Then I got a second email which was even more specific. This was great, really heartening stuff and a total surprise as it was very helpful. Is it normal to receive 2 emails from Google with such clear information? I have been very pleased by the comments they have made as it has shown me that they're more customer focused than I had been led to believe by all the research I had done pre reconsideration request. Has anyone else had a clear outline of what they needed to fix and has their site subsequently rebounded post fixing?
Algorithm Updates | | swimwithfishes0 -
New Google "Knowledge Graph"
So according to CNN an hour ago regarding new Google update: "With Knowledge Graph, which will begin rolling out to some users immediately, results will be arranged according to categories with which the search term has been associated" http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/16/tech/web/google-search-knowledge-graph/index.html?hpt=hp_t3 Does this mean we need to start optimizing for Categories as well as Keywords?
Algorithm Updates | | JFritton0 -
Did google change their algorithm over the past week?
I did some home page optimization with the seo moz on page key word optimization tool and we are now back in the top three in the past week (after dropping to page 3 a month or so ago). It seems that google has gone back to combining google places with organic searches. Has anyone else noticed this type of change? I did read some posts about panda 2.2, which seems to explain some of these findings. I am wondering if things are in flux or they may be more stable this way? Thanks for the insights.
Algorithm Updates | | fertilityhealth0 -
When did the New Google Algorithm Come into Force in the UK
On March 3rd, the hits on my UK site crashed to 40% of the previous number. I am guessing it may be down to the google algorithm change:- http://wisestartupblog.com/seo/google-algorithm-change-february-2011-losers-winners/5081 However, I am aware this happened on 25th Feb in the US. Do you know when it happened in the UK. Could it have suddenly started affecting me on March 3?
Algorithm Updates | | MattBB121