Dev Subdomain Pages Indexed - How to Remove
-
I own a website (domain.com) and used the subdomain "dev.domain.com" while adding a new section to the site (as a development link). I forgot to block the dev.domain.com in my robots file, and google indexed all of the dev pages (around 100 of them).
I blocked the site (dev.domain.com) in robots, and then proceeded to just delete the entire subdomain altogether.
It's been about a week now and I still see the subdomain pages indexed on Google.
How do I get these pages removed from Google? Are they causing duplicate content/title issues, or does Google know that it's a development subdomain and it's just taking time for them to recognize that I deleted it already?
-
Go to WMT for whatever dev site you want to remove from the index. Use the URL removal tool, but in the box just enter /, nothing else. This will remove the entire site.
-
The root of the dev subdomain. There's a blog post at http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/03/url-removal-explained-part-i-urls.html, and you'll want to look at the section for removing an entire site. The interface has likely changed since this post, but the concept is the same.
-
ok so using root domain?
-
Nope! You can request removal of the entire site (meaning dev subdomain). For future reference, you could also request removal of a certain directory on a site, too.
-
When you say "request removal" are you saying that I need to manually add all 100 URLs into the removal tool?
-
You'll want to keep the robots.txt on the dev subdomain, then verify the subdomain in Google Webmaster Tools. Once you do this, you can request removal of the dev subdomain from Google's index (same goes for Bing).
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
-
Glossary index and individual pages create duplicate content. How much might this hurt me?
I've got a glossary on my site with an index page for each letter of the alphabet that has a definition. So the M section lists every definition (the whole definition). But each definition also has its own individual page (and we link to those pages internally so the user doesn't have to hunt down the entire M page). So I definitely have duplicate content ... 112 instances (112 terms). Maybe it's not so bad because each definition is just a short paragraph(?) How much does this hurt my potential ranking for each definition? How much does it hurt my site overall? Am I better off making the individual pages no-index? or canonicalizing them?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LeadSEOlogist0 -
How can a Page indexed without crawled?
Hey moz fans,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | atakala
In the google getting started guide it says **"
Note: **Pages may be indexed despite never having been crawled: the two processes are independent of each other. If enough information is available about a page, and the page is deemed relevant to users, search engine algorithms may decide to include it in the search results despite never having had access to the content directly. That said, there are simple mechanisms such as robots meta tags to make sure that pages are not indexed.
" How can it happen, I dont really get the point.
Thank you0 -
How can I see all the pages google has indexed for my site?
Hi mozers, In WMT google says total indexed pages = 5080. If I do a site:domain.com commard it says 6080 results. But I've only got 2000 pages in my site that should be indexed. So I would like to see all the pages they have indexed so I can consider noindexing them or 404ing them. Many thanks, Julian.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | julianhearn0 -
Huge google index with un-relevant pages
Hi, i run a site about sport matches, every match has a page and the pages are generated automatically from the DB. pages are not duplicated, but over time some look a little bit similar. after a match finishes it has no internal links or sitemap entry, but it's reachable by direct URL and continues to be on google index. so over time we have more than 100,000 indexed pages. since past matches have no significance and they're not linked and a match can repeat and it may look like duplicate content....what you suggest us to do: when a match is finished - not linked, but appears on the index and SERP 301 redirect the match Page to the match Category which is a higher hierarchy and is always relevant? use rel=canonical to the match Category do nothing.... *301 redirect will shrink my index status, some say a high index status is good... *is it safe to 301 redirect 100,000 pages at once - wouldn't it look strange to google? *would canonical remove the past matches pages from the index? what do you think? Thanks, Assaf.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stassaf0 -
Duplicate Page Title/Content Issues on Product Review Submission Pages
Hi Everyone, I'm very green to SEO. I have a Volusion-based storefront and recently decided to dedicate more time and effort into improving my online presence. Admittedly, I'm mostly a lurker in the Q&A forum but I couldn't find any pre-existing info regarding my situation. It could be out there. But again, I'm a noob... So, in my recent SEOmoz report I noticed that over 1,000 Duplicate Content Errors and Duplicate Page Title Errors have been found since my last crawl. I can see that every error is tied to a product in my inventory - specifically each product page has an option to write a review. It looks like the subsequent page where a visitor can fill out their review is the stem of the problem. All of my products are shown to have the same issue: Duplicate Page Title - Review:New Duplicate Page Content - the form is already partially filled out with the corresponding product My first question - It makes sense that a page containing a submission form would have the same title and content. But why is it being indexed, or crawled (or both for that matter) under every parameter in which it could be accessed (product A, B, C, etc)? My second question (an obvious one) - What can I do to begin to resolve this? As far as I know, I haven't touched this option included in Volusion other than to simply implement it. If I'm missing any key information, please point me in the right direction and I'll respond with any additional relevant information on my end. Many thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DakotahW0 -
Indexed non existent pages, problem appeared after we 301d the url/index to the url.
I recently read that if a site has 2 pages that are live such as: http://www.url.com/index and http://www.url.com/ will come up as duplicate if they are both live... I read that it's best to 301 redirect the http://www.url.com/index and http://www.url.com/. I read that this helps avoid duplicate content and keep all the link juice on one page. We did the 301 for one of our clients and we got about 20,000 errors that did not exist. The errors are of pages that are indexed but do not exist on the server. We are assuming that these indexed (nonexistent) pages are somehow linked to the http://www.url.com/index The links are showing 200 OK. We took off the 301 redirect from the http://www.url.com/index page however now we still have 2 exaact pages, www.url.com/index and http://www.url.com/. What is the best way to solve this issue?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bryan_Loconto0 -
E Commerce product page canonical and indexing + URL parameters
Hi, I'm having some issues on the best way to handle site structure. The technical side of SEO isn't my strong point so I thought I'd ask the question before I make the decision. Two examples for you to look at. This is a new site http://www.tester.co.uk/electrical/multimeters/digital. By selecting another page to see more products you get this url string where/p/2. This page also has the canonical tag relating to this page and not the original page. Now if say for example I exclude this parameter (where) in webmaster tools will I be stopping Google indexing the products on the other pages where/p/2, 3, 4 etc. and the same if I make the canonical point to multimeters/digital/ instead of multimeters/digital/where/p/2 etc.? I have the same question applied to the older site http://www.pat-services.co.uk/digital-multimeters-26.html. which no longer has an canonical tags at all. The only real difference is Google is indexing http://www.pat-services.co.uk/digital-multimeters-26.html?page=2 but not http://www.tester.co.uk/electrical/multimeters/digital/where/p/2 Thanks for help in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PASSLtd0 -
How do you transition a keyword rank from a home page to a sub-page on the site?
We're currently ranking #1 for a valuable keyword, but the result on the SERP is our home page. We're creating a new product page focused on this keyword to provide a better user experience and create more relevant content. What is the best way to make a smooth transition to make the product page rank #1 for the keyword instead of the home page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | buildasign0
