Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How to safely exclude search result pages from Google's index?
-
Hello everyone,
I'm wondering what's the best way to prevent/block search result pages from being indexed by Google. The way search works on my site is that search form generates URLs like:
/index.php?blah-blah-search-results-blahI wanted to block everything of that sort, but how do I do it without blocking /index.php ?
Thanks in advance and have a great day everyone!
-
Hi Louise,
If you can ID the parameters, you can also look at blocking these in Webmaster Tools. This page explains more. As with any blocking of URLs, of course, proceed with caution.
-
I agree that can be effective. The reason I suggested the robots.txt is because Louise mentioned "blocking and preventing" as an objective. Robots.txt are particularly useful in the example where results from a search bar or something of that nature is involved. A NOINDEX, FOLLOW will not prevent bots from getting tired and dizzy, whereas the robots.txt can "block and prevent" bots from crawling certain parameters.
With all of that said, I think it is important to understand whether you need the bots to crawl and not index (in which case Spencer's answer is correct), or if you need to prevent bots from crawling the parameters altogether.
Hope that is more clear
-
I'm not sure that robots.txt is effective when url parameters are involved.
I would just add a meta robots tag to the head section of the search results template:
-
If you are able to identify a url parameter, you may excluded them using robots.txt. Here is a great resource on Robots.txt - http://moz.com/learn/seo/robotstxt
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
-
Google Search Console not loading some resources
When I check an URL with Search Console it cannot load some page resources, even from other domains (like: ssl.google-analytics.com, www.facebook.com and www.google-analytics.com).
Reporting & Analytics | | TottiataHUN
Have any of you experienced this issue?
Steps to reproduce: open Google Search Console check an URL click "View crawled page" link select "More info" tab click "Page resources" {?}/{?} couldn't be loaded When I check the listed resources, all of them can be loaded from a web browser.
So I do not understand why Google cannot load them.
And there is no additional info why the resources could not be loaded.
Any ideas? google-search-console-other-error-1.png google-search-console-other-error-2.png0 -
Blocking Standard pages with Robots.txt (t&c's, shipping policy, pricing & privacy policies etc)
Hi I've just had best practice site migration completed for my old e-commerce store into a Shopify environment and I see in GSC that it's reporting my standard pages as blocked by robots.txt, such as these below examples. Surely I don't want these blocked ? is that likely due to my migrators or s defaults setting with Shopify does anyone know? : t&c's shipping policy pricing policy privacy policy etc So in summary: Shall I unblock these? What caused it Shopify default settings or more likely my migration team? All Best Dan
Reporting & Analytics | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
UTM Links Showing Up as Separate Pages in Google Analytics
Hey everyone, I was just looking at landing pages in Google Analytics, and in addition to just the URL of the landing page, the UTM links are being listed as separate pages. Is this normal? I anticipated seeing the landing page URL and then using the secondary dimension to see source/medium. If this isn't normal, what would I check next?
Reporting & Analytics | | rachelmeyer0 -
Did Analytics change the way to handle Google images searches on Dec 12?
Dear all, One of the sites I'm monitoring receives a lot of traffic from image searches or images that appear in universal search results. On Dec 12th, 2015, the bounce rate for these sessions went from around 30% the day before to around 87%. See screen shot below. Did anybody notice similar bounces in the bounce rate? Did Google change something in the way that image search is handled? Looking forward to your ideas! large?v=mpbl-1&px=999
Reporting & Analytics | | AABMarketing_Frank0 -
What does 'Safari (in-app)' mean in Google Analytics browser traffic?
Hi, can anyone explain what 'Safari (in-app)' refers to in my browser sources? Also, it has a very high bounce rate - any ideas why?
Reporting & Analytics | | b4cab1 -
% Change - Google analytics - how to calculate?
Hi All,
Reporting & Analytics | | JohnPalmer
I have two dates with two different numbers I want to calculate the "% Change" like google analytics, The numbers of June 2015 - 127,931 sessions
The numbers of June 2014 - 90914 sessions please tell me what is the %Change. Best. J0 -
How to get multiple pages to appear under main url in search - photo attached
How do you get a site to have an organized site map under the main url when it is searched as in the example photo? SIte-map.png
Reporting & Analytics | | marketingmediamanagement0 -
Google Analytics - Organic Search Traffic & Queries -What caused the huge difference?
Our website traffic dropped a little bit during the last month, but it's getting better now, almost the same with previous period. But our conversion rate dropped by 50% for the last three weeks. What could cause this huge drop in conversion rate? In Google Analytics, I compared the Organic Search Traffic with previous period, the result is similar. But the Search Engine Optimization ->Queries shows that the clicks for last month is almost zero. What could be the cause of this huge differnce? e9sJNwD.png k4M8Fa5.png
Reporting & Analytics | | joony0