Sub Domains and Robot.txt files...
-
This is going to seem like a stupid question, and perhaps it is but I am pulling out what little hair I have left.
I have a sub level domain on which a website sits. The Main domain has a robots.txt file that disallows all robots. It has been two weeks, I submitted the sitemap through webmaster tools and still, Google has not indexed the sub domain website. My question is, could the robots.txt file on the main domain be affecting the crawlability of the website on the sub domain? I wouldn't have thought so but I can find nothing else.
Thanks in advance.
-
Thank you, Mr. Young. I believed this to be the case (that it wasn't the robots.txt file) but I could think of nothing else. I have since been indexed.
-
The way that Google finds robots.txt files is by taking your URL, and adding /robots.txt to it. So a good way to see if the robots.txt file is affecting your subdomain is to go to subdomain.domain.com/robots.txt. If the file exists, then it is affecting your subdomain. If it doesn't, then it's only active on your main domain.
Getting indexed is function of having unique content and pagerank, so make sure your subdomain has unique content and links if you're having trouble getting it indexed. Submitting a sitemap is no guarantee that Google will index your site.
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
-
'domain:example.com/' is this line with a '/' at the end of the domain valid in a disavow report file ?
Hi everyone Just out of curiosity, what would happen if in my disavow report I have this line : domain:example.com**/** instead of domain:example.com as recommended by google. I was just wondering if adding a / at the end of a domain would automatically render the line invalid and ignored by Google's disavow backlinks tool. Many thanks for your thoughts
Technical SEO | | LabeliumUSA0 -
Old domain to new domain
Hi, A website on server A is no longer required. The owner has redirected some URLS of this website (via plugin) to his new website on server B -but not all URLS. So when I use COMMAND site:website A , I see a mixture of redirected URLS and not redirected URLS.Therefore two websites are still being indexed in some form and causing duplication. However, weirdly when I crawl with Screaming Frog I only see one URL which is 301 redirected to the new website. I would have thought I'd see lots of URLs which hadn't been redirected. How come it is different to using the site:command? Anyway, how do I move to the new website completely without the old one being indexed anymore. I thought I knew this but have read so many blogs I've confused myself! Should I: Redirect all URLS via the HTACESS file on old website on server A? There are lots of pages indexed so a lot of URLs. What if I miss some? or Point the old domain via DNS to server B and do the redirects in website B HTaccess file? This seems more sensible but does this method still retain the website rankings? Thanks for any help
Technical SEO | | AL123al0 -
Will a robots.txt disallow apply to a 301ed URL?
Hi there, I have a robots.txt query which I haven't tried before and as we're nearing a big time for sales, I'm hesitant to just roll out to live! Say for example, in my robots.txt I disallow the URL 'example1.html'. In reality, 'example1.html' 301s/302s to 'example2.html'. Would the robots.txt directive also apply to 'example2.html' (disallow) or as it's a separate URL, would the directive be ignored as it's not valid? I have a feeling that as it's a separate URL, the robots disallow directive won't apply. However, just thought I'd sense-check with the community.
Technical SEO | | ecommercebc0 -
Are robots.txt wildcards still valid? If so, what is the proper syntax for setting this up?
I've got several URL's that I need to disallow in my robots.txt file. For example, I've got several documents that I don't want indexed and filters that are getting flagged as duplicate content. Rather than typing in thousands of URL's I was hoping that wildcards were still valid.
Technical SEO | | mkhGT0 -
Can I rely on just robots.txt
We have a test version of a clients web site on a separate server before it goes onto the live server. Some code from the test site has some how managed to get Google to index the test site which isn't great! Would simply adding a robots text file to the root of test simply blocking all be good enough or will i have to put the meta tags for no index and no follow etc on all pages on the test site also?
Technical SEO | | spiralsites0 -
Robots.txt question
Hello, What does the following command mean - User-agent: * Allow: / Does it mean that we are blocking all spiders ? Is Allow supported in robots.txt ? Thanks
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050 -
What are your thoughts on security of placing CMS-related folders in a robots.txt file?
So I was just about to add a whole heap of CMS-related folders to my robots.txt file to exclude them from search, and thought "hey, I'm publicly telling people where my admin folders are"...surely that's not right?! Should I leave them out of the robots.txt file, and hope for the best that they never get indexed? Should I use noindex meta data on every page? What are people's thoughts? Thanks, James PS. I know this is similar to lots of other discussions around meta noindex vs. robots.txt, but I'm after specific thoughts around the security aspect of listing your admin folders in a robots.txt file...
Technical SEO | | James-Distinction0 -
Robots.txt
should I add anything else besides User-Agent: * to my robots.txt file? http://melo4.melotec.com:4010/
Technical SEO | | Romancing0