Will password protecting my test sub-domain help keep the SEs from indexing it?
-
Hi, all. I'm working in an unfamiliar area here, so I hope someone can tell me if I'm out in left field.
I am building a sub-domain called http://test.mysite.com, so that I can upload a client's still-under-construction site while working on it. When completed, it'll go up on his server, replacing his old site. Obviously, I want to ensure that it doesn't get indexed while it's on my test platform.
A friend suggested that I password it with htaccess and htpasswd, since we can never be certain the SEs will obey site directives.
My question is, what do you think would be the best (and hopefully, simplest) way to accomplish this?
I'm no code-monkey, so "simple" is a big plus!
Doc
By the way, the platform will be Wordpress CMS.
-
A different Matt but I have to/still agree that you need to password protect the site. This isn't just for a protection against crawlers but also anyone else who might be snooping around. Unless your client is okay with their work being released early into the wild you should password protect it.
The good news is that many hosting companies have tools that will automagically generate the .htaccess files for your.
-
Thanks, Darryl-
Passwording the site seemed like a good option, although I wasn't aware that Matt had ever stated that. That being the case, it would certainly seem like the way to go. Thanks for the input!
-
Also, a good way to go is the following:
- tell search engines to go away in robots.txt
- to insert a meta noindex tag
- block in .htaccess as well
Matt Cutts stated that the only 100% sure way is to password protect the folder
-
Thanks for the response, Matt. So you feel like that's a sure way? There seems to be some different opinions on whether or not all the SEs will respect that. I had always thought it was a solid way to do it,too. But some of the arguments I'm hearing have me in doubt, now.
-
htaccess is a very simple way to protect the site from crawlers. If they can't access the pages they certainly can't index them.
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
-
Large Domain Authority Drop - Please Help
Hey there all, We are having the toughest time trying to figure out why our domain authority went from 12 to 3 with a search visibility score of literally zero. Back in Feb when the D.A.'s were all updated, we went down while all our competitors went up. We've been stuck at 3 for a few months and we can't understand why and aren't sure if we are dealing with a penalty of sorts. www.skycraftstudios.com is our site. We have a total of 60 some odd links in Search Console (some are garbage that we have disavowed, others are quality) but none of them are getting picked up in the newer MoZ index. We have added a few quality links lately, and even sped up our site quite a bit in conjunction with standard best practice optimizations, and even added an SSL cert, yet we stuck at a terrible D.A. of 3 and aren't even able to get into the top 10 pages of our main targeted term which seems incredibly odd to us. The site has been up for almost 2 years. Could this be simply a matter of not enough quality inbound links from the index? Any insight here would be appreciated.
Technical SEO | | SkycraftNate1 -
Different Domains on Same IP
Hello I'm just wondering how much of a difference it makes having links to a site from 2 separate domains that are on the same IP, compared to if the domains were on separate IPs? Thank you! Sam
Technical SEO | | wearehappymedia0 -
Why my website does not index?
I made some changes in my website after that I try webmaster tool FETCH AS GOOGLE but this is 2nd day and my new pages does not index www. astrologersktantrik .com
Technical SEO | | ramansaab0 -
URL redirecting domains
Hi Is there anything wrong/dangerous forwarding a clutch of domains to a sub page (landing page) on a different domain ? Say Brand X buys Brand Z and wants to close down Brand Z site but have Brand Z domain fwd to a landing page (explaining the company acquisition) on Brand X site. In addition Brand Z had a few related but unused domains forwarding to Brand Z doman & now also wants those fwd'd to the new landing page on brand X Since the reasons for doing this forwarding are legitimate company reasons relating to an acquisition i would have thought it should be ok but can anyone think of a reason why could be bad since i remember in the old days peeps used to redirect domains for seo reasons so worried fwd'ing a load of domains could cause some sort of negative flag with big G ? Also do domain redirects transfer the authority/juice from the old site/domain to the new destination page (new landing page on brand x site) similar to how a 301 redirect works ? Many Thanks Dan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Registering expired domains
Hi there, I've found a good domain that is available for a new project. It has been expired for about 4 months or so. It has a couple of links, with the domain name as an anchor, nothing horrible. Will buying a domain like this be safe from an seo perspective? I'm guessing it would be treated the same as buying a new domain that has never been registered before, Would I be right? Peter
Technical SEO | | PeterM220 -
Sub-domains for keyword targeting? (specific example question)
Hey everyone, I have a question I believe is interesting and may help others as well. Our competitor heavily (over 100-200) uses sub-domains to rank in the search engines... and is doing quite well. What's strange, however, is that all of these sub-domains are just archives -- they're 100% duplicate content! An example can be seen here where they just have a bunch of relevant posts archived with excerpts. How is this ranking so well? Many of them are top 5 for keywords in the 100k+ range. In fact their #1 source of traffic is SEO for many of the pages. As an added question: is this effective if you were to actually have a quality/non-duplicate page? Thanks! Loving this community.
Technical SEO | | naturalsociety0 -
Keyword in Domain or not?
My on page optimization grade is an "A" with the following factors; Factor Overview <dl class="scoreboard clearfix"> <dt>Critical Factors</dt> <dd>4 / 4</dd> <dt>High Importance Factors</dt> <dd>7 / 7</dd> <dt>Moderate Importance Factors</dt> <dd>8 / 9</dd> <dt>Low Importance Factors</dt> <dd>11 / 11</dd> <dt>Optional Factors</dt> <dd>5 / 5</dd> </dl> The main thing I appear to be missing is keywords in my URL. How truly important is that in today's SEO world and how much time or ranking would be lost if I do not have control to change the external links to my website if I decided to migrate to a keyword relevant url?
Technical SEO | | classa0 -
Will errors on a subdomain effect the overall health of the root domain?
As stated in the question, we have 2 sub domains that contain over 2000 reported errors from SEOMOZ. The root domain has a clean bill of health, and i was just wondering if these errors on the sub-domains could have a negative effect on the root domain in the eyes of Google. Your comments will be appreciated. Regards Greg
Technical SEO | | AndreVanKets0