Robots.txt and robots meta
-
I have an odd situation. I have a CMS that has a global robots.txt which has the generic
User-Agent: *
Allow: /I also have one CMS site that needs to not be indexed ever. I've read in various pages (like http://www.jesterwebster.com/robots-txt-vs-meta-tag-which-has-precedence/22 ) that robots.txt always wins over meta, but I have also read that robots.txt indicates spiderability whereas meta can control indexation. I just want the site to not be indexed. Can I leave the robots.txt as is and still put NOINDEX in the robots meta?
-
I see. Have you considered putting it behind an htpasswd?
-
I can control it (it's a custom piece of software) but it's not as easy a fix as adding a meta to the template.
The main problem is we have a junk TLD we use to test some new ideas off the live server (lets clients give us feedback) but it gets spidered and indexed and starts ranking for client sites before they're ready to live in their own TLD. This means we have to compete against ourselves (even with a 301). There's nothing sensitive or it would live behind a password.
-
Do you need to control access to the site beyond the SERPS? I would not rely on robots.txt to shield any sensitive data.
For a breakdown of robots.txt and robots meta-tags checkout: http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html and http://www.searchtools.com/robots/robots-meta.html/, and for a great post on using these standards in SEO check out: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/serious-robotstxt-misuse-high-impact-solutions
I am also concerned that you are unable to control your robots.txt! If your CMS doesn't let you do that and overwrites it when you change it manually, you have some major control problems on your hands that you should remedy.
-
Blocking it at the robots.txt will not guarantee that your site will not appear at Google's index. I think you can use meta robots NOINDEX to guarantee that Google will not show your pages when someone try to Google it.
It is important to say that Googlebot and other spiders will continue to visit your page.
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
-
Wrong Hotel Amenity Being Pulled Into Meta Description
Hey Mozzers, Have a quick question for you hospitality folks. We have a hotel property that has amenities being pulled into the meta description that aren't correct. We do have a custom meta description in the CMS but it is only pulling a portion of our meta description and is then including what appears to be a dynamic list of hotel amenities: "free covered parking; full service catering; complimentary airport shuttle". The airport shuttle is no longer free and the property is charging a small fee. All copy on the page (and across the site) has been updated to reflect this change. My main questions are: 1.) Are these amenities just pulled by Google? Do we have any control over this? 2.) Is there anything we can do to correct this error? Or do we just need to wait for it to hopefully update automatically? Thanks for the help!
Technical SEO | | mbochic0 -
Robots txt. in page with 301 redirect
We currently have a a series of help pages that we would like to disallow from our robots txt. The thing is that these help pages are located in our old website, which now has a 301 redirect to current site. Which is the proper way to go around? 1- Add the pages we want to disallow to the robots.txt of the new website? 2- Break the redirect momentarily and add the pages to the robots.txt of the old one? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Kilgray0 -
Google displaying different meta descriptions for the same URL but different keyword
Hi All, A quick question that may even have a quick answer: Why would Google display a different meta description for the same URL for a different keyword? For example I enter 2 of our similar keywords into Google: KEYWORD A | META DESCRIPTION A DISPLAYED | URL A KEYWORD B | META DESCRIPTION B DISPLAYED | URL A Thanks in advance
Technical SEO | | SO_UK0 -
'External nofollow' in a robots meta tag? (advertorial links)
I believe this has never worked? It'd be an easy way of preventing any penalties from Google's recent crackdown on paid links via advertorials. When it's not possible to nofollow each external link individually, what are people doing? Nofollowing and/or noindexing the whole page?
Technical SEO | | Alex-Harford0 -
Best use of robots.txt for "garbage" links from Joomla!
I recently started out on Seomoz and is trying to make some cleanup according to the campaign report i received. One of my biggest gripes is the point of "Dublicate Page Content". Right now im having over 200 pages with dublicate page content. Now.. This is triggerede because Seomoz have snagged up auto generated links from my site. My site has a "send to freind" feature, and every time someone wants to send a article or a product to a friend via email a pop-up appears. Now it seems like the pop-up pages has been snagged by the seomoz spider,however these pages is something i would never want to index in Google. So i just want to get rid of them. Now to my question I guess the best solution is to make a general rule via robots.txt, so that these pages is not indexed and considered by google at all. But, how do i do this? what should my syntax be? A lof of the links looks like this, but has different id numbers according to the product that is being send: http://mywebshop.dk/index.php?option=com_redshop&view=send_friend&pid=39&tmpl=component&Itemid=167 I guess i need a rule that grabs the following and makes google ignore links that contains this: view=send_friend
Technical SEO | | teleman0 -
Meta Description,Title
If I changed the meta description and title of the post from the existing one how long will it may take to get indexed in Google. How can I fasten the process of indexing the changed meta description and title. Thanks, Venkee.
Technical SEO | | Venkee0 -
Robots.txt Showing in SERP Results
Currently doing a technical audit for a website and when I search "Site:website.com -www" the only result is website.com/robots.txt I was wondering if anyone else has come across this before -- or what this may mean from a technical audit standpoint. Thank you!
Technical SEO | | vectormedia0 -
How do I add meta descriptions to Archives in Wordpress?
My most recent crawl returned a number of 'missing meta description' errors, and when I checked individual URLs, it turned out they were Wordpress Archived pages - for individual months and days (e.g. http:// .../2011/01). What's the best way to go about adding descriptions to these pages, if at all? Or should I have these pages not be indexed? I am using the All in One SEO plugin, so maybe there is an easy fix through this plugin, or it may be the cause of these errors? Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance! **EDIT After looking it up further, I have decided to use noindex for Archives, which should solve my problem right? Or is there a benefit to having those archived pages?
Technical SEO | | NetPicks0