How to remove my site's pages in search results?
-
I have tested hundreds of pages to see if Google will properly crawl, index and cached them. Now, I want these pages to be removed in Google search except for homepage. What should be the rule in robots.txt?
I use this rule, but I am not sure if Google will remove the hundreds of pages (for my testing).
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
Allow: /$ -
Why not just 404/410 those pages?
-
Hi Matt! I've already tried your suggestion. I'll let you know what's the result. Thanks a lot man!
-
why don't you try adding a meta robots tag on those pages with "NOINDEX".
i would also do remove url with WMT
-
These are just test pages and I need them to be private and not visible in Google after I test. I understand that there will be a drop in SERP rankings.
-
I would do
User-agent: *
Disallow: /?
Allow: /But test it first in WMT first to be safe. However, you must be sure that this is the route you want to go down. Robots.txt will prevent all of those pages from being indexed, which means that none of their content will count. Any links to these pages may also be devalued. The result is a potential drop in SERPs.
What is the reason why you don't want them appearing? That way we may find an alternative solution.
-
This is basically a duplicate of your other thread where I gave you that code. Yes, it should block the other pages. Put that in, fetch in WMT and you should be right.
Also, you can test it before you implement in WMT as well. I tried it on my end and it works.
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
-
Site migration/ CMS/domain site structure change-no access to search console
Hi everyone, We are migrating an old site under a bigger umbrella (our main domain). As mentioned in the title, We'll perform CMS migration, domain change, and site structure change. Now, the major problem is that we can't get into google search console for the old site. The site still has old GA code, so google search console verification using this method is not possible, also there is no way developers will be able to add GTM or edit DNS setting (not to bother you with the reason why). Now, my dilemma is : 1. Do we need access to old search console to notify Google about the domain name change or this could be done from our main site (old site will become a part of) search console 2. We are setting up 301 redirects from old to the new domain (not perfect 1:1 redirect ). Once migration is done does anything else needs to be done with the old domain (it will become obsolete)? 3.The main site, Site-map... Should I create a new sitemap with newly added pages or update the current one. 4. if you have anything else please add:) Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bgvsiteadmin0 -
Search console site verification
I've been going on the assumption that when verifying a website in search console, it's always good to register and verify all variants of the site URL: http https www non-www However, if you create redirects to the preferred URL, is it really necessary to register/virfy of the other three? If so, why?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | muzzmoz0 -
Big discrepancies between pages in Google's index and pages in sitemap
Hi, I'm noticing a huge difference in the number of pages in Googles index (using 'site:' search) versus the number of pages indexed by Google in Webmaster tools. (ie 20,600 in 'site:' search vs 5,100 submitted via the dynamic sitemap.) Anyone know possible causes for this and how i can fix? It's an ecommerce site but i can't see any issues with duplicate content - they employ a very good canonical tag strategy. Could it be that Google has decided to ignore the canonical tag? Any help appreciated, Karen
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Digirank0 -
Doubts with URL's structure
Hi guys i have some doubts with the correct URL structure for a new site. The question is about how show the city, the district and also the filters. I would do that: www.domain.com/category/city/disctict but maybe is better do that: **www.domain.com/category/city-district ** I also have 3 filters that are "individual/colective" "indoor/outdoor" and "young/adult" but that are not really interesting for the querys so where and how i put this filtters? At the end of the url showing these: **www.domain.com/cateogry/city/district#adult#outdoor#colective ** ? Well really i don't know what to do with the filters. Check if you could help me with that please. I also have a lof of interest in knowing if maybe is better use this combination **www.domain.com/category-city or domain.com/category/city **and know about the diference. Thank you very much!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | omarmoscatt0 -
Our login pages are being indexed by Google - How do you remove them?
Each of our login pages show up under different subdomains of our website. Currently these are accessible by Google which is a huge competitive advantage for our competitors looking for our client list. We've done a few things to try to rectify the problem: - No index/archive to each login page Robot.txt to all subdomains to block search engines gone into webmaster tools and added the subdomain of one of our bigger clients then requested to remove it from Google (This would be great to do for every subdomain but we have a LOT of clients and it would require tons of backend work to make this happen.) Other than the last option, is there something we can do that will remove subdomains from being viewed from search engines? We know the robots.txt are working since the message on search results say: "A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt – learn more." But we'd like the whole link to disappear.. Any suggestions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | desmond.liang1 -
Hidden text that's not show in default view, does it hurt my on page optimization?
Hello, I am developing our new site that will create tabs such as "design", "tech specs", "customer ratings" etc. just like http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-15z-5523/pd. My question is, if most of my content is on the 2nd and 3rd tabs, would my content effect my overall SEO if it's not on it's default view? Because, if users don't physically click on the 2nd and 3rd tab, does it mean that since there is no impression of that content, that content will be allocated to half of its SEO juice? Let me know, I would love to know! Shawn
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Shawn1241 -
"site" operator and pages
Hi folks, We are having trouble in indexing, We have certain pages which are not coming in results when I am using the site operator in Google. for e.g. : sitename.com/widgets/red They are not showing any link results in Google webmaster tools too. But the pages which only linked through them are displaying in results when I am using site operator. for e.g: sitename.com/widgets/red/large We are redirecting some of the search which are close or exact match to the respective pages for e.g: sitename.com/search/red --> sitename.com/widgets/red We are fluctuating on rankings too in google serps form top ppositions to no where, for sitename.com/widgets/red and most of the times when google shows sitename.com/search/red instead of itename.com/widgets/red. Can you please put a light on this issues.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | semshah1430 -
There's a website I'm working with that has a .php extension. All the pages do. What's the best practice to remove the .php extension across all pages?
Client wishes to drop the .php extension on all their pages (they've got around 2k pages). I assured them that wasn't necessary. However, in the event that I do end up doing this what's the best practices way (and easiest way) to do this? This is also a WordPress site. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | digisavvy0