Google is indexing my directories
-
I'm sure this has been asked before, but I was looking at all of Google's results for my site and I found dozens of results for directories such as:
Index of /scouting/blog/wp-includes/js/swfupload/plugins
Obviously I don't want those indexed. How do I prevent Google from indexing those?
Also, it only seems to be doing it with Wordpress, not any of the directories on my main site. (We have a wordpress blog, which is only a portion of the site)
-
Thanks for expanding on that!
a) There are no pages in these folders; they're just directories full of Wordpress config stuff
b) I already have Yoast and have tag pages noindexed. All the directories I'm referring to are similar to the path I showed above.
c) If I request removal of specific folders, will it also remove all the files within the folder?\
Thanks!
-
To elaborate a little on what he said
a) yes block the folders with content you don't want indexed in robots.txt - but that is not enough you need to add the noindex to the pages as well for an extra measure.
b) get the YOAST seo plugin for wordpress installed on your site and configure it to follow,noindex these page. look at other sections you don't want indexed too like tag pages. This plugin is easy to use and will help suggest default settings.
c) yes you can go into WMT to request removal of specific folders and urls and Google will quickly get them out of the index for you instead of waiting for them to age away. Your robots.txt should be in place before doing this to make sure it's permanent.
-
Here are your options:
- Robots.txt - http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=93708 - easy option.
- Noindex tags - http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-noindex-behavior/
- Removal request - https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=59819
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
-
Is my website indexed correctly in Google - www.couponshop.co.uk
Our website www.couponshop.co.uk has just had a relaunch after a change of direction.
Technical SEO | | LaurenGT
A lot of the pages were redirected. When I checked the indexing of the website on Google, I put site:couponshop.co.uk and only two pages come up, but when I put site:www.couponshop.co.uk they all show up.
Is this correct or are we doing something wrong?0 -
Homepage not indexed
Hi, I have a problem with my website. From my PC, when I search for site:nobelcom.com the homepage of the website doesn't appear, but on other PCs (different IPs) it is ok.
Technical SEO | | Silviu
Also any keywords that usually responded with homepage, now responds with other page. Does anyone know way this is happening. It happen before the Penguin update, and after a fetch like google and send to index, I had the homepage back on serps0 -
Google Ecommerce Alerts
I recently started getting email notifications from Google re: new products on our websites. I am subscribed to Google alerts. Can anyone shed some light on this?
Technical SEO | | AMHC0 -
Google indexing despite robots.txt block
Hi This subdomain has about 4'000 URLs indexed in Google, although it's blocked via robots.txt: https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&q=site%3Awww1.swisscom.ch&oq=site%3Awww1.swisscom.ch This has been the case for almost a year now, and it does not look like Google tends to respect the blocking in http://www1.swisscom.ch/robots.txt Any clues why this is or what I could do to resolve it? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | zeepartner0 -
Why did Google stop indexing my site?
Google used to crawl my site every few minutes. Suddenly it stopped and the last week it indexed 3 pages out of thousands. https://www.google.co.il/#q=site:www.yetzira.com&source=lnt&tbs=qdr:w&sa=X&ei=I9aTUfTTCaKN0wX5moCgAw&ved=0CBgQpwUoAw&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&fp=cfac44f10e55f418&biw=1829&bih=938 What could cause this to happen and how can I solve this problem? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | JillB20130 -
Web page is showing up on Google but doesn't show when it was cached, so is it indexed?
Hey everyone So I created a new page on a WordPress website, it was live for a few hours till I changed my mind & switched it back to a draft. Just out of curiosity I did the Site:www.example.com/Example search on Google to see if it had been indexed & apparently it had but when I click on cached to see what time it got indexed at exactly it's showing me an error. So does this mean it is indexed or not?
Technical SEO | | conversiontactics0 -
Duplicate Homepage In Google
Hi Just found through my SEO dashboard, Google has two versions of the same homepage, the root page, plus the index.html page, causing duplicate content from both the pages. what is the best option to ensure google only have 1 version of the homepage listed?
Technical SEO | | rfksolutionsltd0 -
Google crawl index issue with our website...
Hey there. We've run into a mystifying issue with Google's crawl index of one of our sites. When we do a "site:www.burlingtonmortgage.biz" search in Google, we're seeing lots of 404 Errors on pages that don't exist on our site or seemingly on the remote server. In the search results, Google is showing nonsensical folders off the root domain and then the actual page is within that non-existent folder. An example: Google shows this in its index of the site (as a 404 Error page): www.burlingtonmortgage.biz/MQnjO/idaho-mortgage-rates.asp The actual page on the site is: www.burlingtonmortgage.biz/idaho-mortgage-rates.asp Google is showing the folder MQnjO that doesn't exist anywhere on the remote. Other pages they are showing have different folder names that are just as wacky. We called our hosting company who said the problem isn't coming from them... Has anyone had something like this happen to them? Thanks so much for your insight!
Technical SEO | | ILM_Marketing
Megan0