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!
-
It sounds like Martijn solved your problem, but I still wanted to add that robots.txt exclusions keep search bots from reading pages that are disallowed, but it does not stop those pages from being returned in search results. When those pages do appear, a lot of times they'll have a page description along the lines of "A description of this page is not available due to this sites robots.txt".
If you want to ensure that pages are kept out of search engines results, you have to use the noindex meta tag on each page.
-
Yes, I think the crucial point is that addressing googlebot wouldn't resolve the specific problem I have here.
I would have tried adressing googlebot otherwise. But to be honest, I wouldn't have expected a much different result than specifying all user agents. Googlebot should be part of that exclusion in any case.
-
I thought that value was a bit outdated, turns out to be still accepted. Although it probably only address this issue for him in Google and I assume it will still remain one in other search engines.
Besides that the problem offered a way better solution in allowing Google not on the HTTPS site.
-
Specifically for Googlebot. I'm pretty surprised people would disagree - Stephan Spencer recommended this in a personal conversation with me.
-
Did you mean a noindex tags for robots or a specific one for googlebot? With the second one I probably get the downvotes.
-
People who are disagreeing with this, explain your reasoning.
-
A noindex tag specific to Googlebot would also be a good idea.
-
You're welcome, it was mostly due to noticing that the first snippet, the homepage, had no snippet and the rest of the pages did have one. That led me to looking at their URL structure. Good luck fixing it!
-
100 points for you Martijn, thanks! I'm pretty sure you've found the problem and I'll go about fixing it. Gotta get used to having https used more frequently now...
-
Hi Phillipp,
You almost got me with this one, but it's fairly simple. In your question you're pointing at the robots.txt of your HTTP page. But it's mostly your HTTP**S **pages that are indexed and if you look at that robots.txt file it's pretty clear why these pages are indexed: https://www1.swisscom.ch/robots.txt all the pages that are indexed match with one of your Allow statements are the complete Disallow. Hopefully that provides you with the insight on how to fix your issue.
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
-
My brand name has 2 words but Google only indexing as 1 word. Is there a fix?
Hi all...I'm at a loss. I've never had this happen. Google only shows pages of my site when I search the brand name as one word. When I Google the site as one word BrandBrand- it only shows my blog page and about us page plus Twitter and Facebook on page 1. The homepage does not show up at all. When I Google the site as two words Brand Brand - My Facebook page is on page 1 but nothing else. The homepage isn't showing up at all. When I search both words on Bing and Yahoo both are indexing it as two words and shows on page 1. Any ideas?
Technical SEO | | TexasBlogger0 -
X-robots tag causing no index issues
I have an interesting problem with a site which has an x-robot tag blocking the site from being indexed, the site is in Wordpress, there are no issues with the robots.txt or at the page level, I cant find the noindex anywhere. I removed the SEO plug-in which was there and installed Yoast but it made no difference. this is the url: https://www.cotswoldflatroofing.com/ Its coming up with a HTTP error: x-robots tag noindex, nofollow, noarchive
Technical SEO | | Donsimong0 -
How to know how much pages are indexed on Google?
I have a big site, there are a way to know what page are not indexed? I know that you can use site: but with a big site is a mess to check page by page. This is a tool or a system to check a entire site and automatically find non-indexed pages?
Technical SEO | | markovald0 -
Anything new if determining how many of a sites pages are in Google's supplemental index vs the main index?
Since site:mysite.com *** -sljktf stopped working to find pages in the supplemental index several years ago has anyone found another way to identify content that has been regulated to the supplemental index?
Technical SEO | | SEMPassion0 -
Google Sitemap - How Long Does it Take Google To Index?
We have changed our sitemap about 1 month ago and Google is yet to index it. We have run a site: search and we still have many pages indexed but we are wondering how long does it take for google to index our sitemap? The last sitemap we put up had thousands of pages indexed within a fortnight, but for some reason this version is taking way longer. We are also confident that there are no errors in this version. Help!
Technical SEO | | JamesDFA0 -
Unnecessary pages getting indexed in Google for my blog
I have a blog dapazze.com and I am suffering from a problem for a long time. I found out that Google have indexed hundreds of replytocom links and images attachment pages for my blog. I had to remove these pages manually using the URL removal tool. I had used "Disallow: ?replytocom" in my robots.txt, but Google disobeyed it. After that, I removed the parameter from my blog completely using the SEO by Yoast plugin. But now I see that Google has again started indexing these links even after they are not present in my blog (I use #comment). Google have also indexed many of my admin and plugin pages, whereas they are disallowed in my robots.txt file. Have a look at my robots.txt file here: http://dapazze.com/robots.txt Please help me out to solve this problem permanently?
Technical SEO | | rahulchowdhury0 -
Robots.txt question
What is this robots.txt telling the search engines? User-agent: * Disallow: /stats/
Technical SEO | | DenverKelly0 -
Robots.txt and robots meta
I have an odd situation. I have a CMS that has a global robots.txt which has the generic User-Agent: *
Technical SEO | | Highland
Allow: / I also have one CMS site that needs to not be indexed ever. I've read in various pages (like http://www.jesterwebster.com/robots-txt-vs-meta-tag-which-has-precedence/22 ) that robots.txt always wins over meta, but I have also read that robots.txt indicates spiderability whereas meta can control indexation. I just want the site to not be indexed. Can I leave the robots.txt as is and still put NOINDEX in the robots meta?0