Blocking subdomains without blocking sites...
-
So let's say I am working for bloggingplatform.com, and people can create free sites through my tools and those sites show up as myblog.bloggingplatform.com. However that site can also be accessed from myblog.com.
Is there a way, separate from editing the myblog.com site code or files, for me to tell google to stop indexing myblog.bloggingplatform.com while still letting them index myblog.com without inserting any code into the page load?
This is a simplification of a problem I am running across.
Basically, Google is associating subdomains to my domain that it shouldn't even index, and it is adversely affecting my main domain. Other than contacting the offending sub-domain holders (which we do), I am looking for a way to stop Google from indexing those domains at all (they are used for technical purposes, and not for users to find the sites).
Thoughts?
-
Ah, I see now. Try this out http://moz.com/community/q/block-an-entire-subdomain-with-robots-txt#reply_26992 - basically, when a subdomain is identified, it would pull a different file into the robots.txt location (which would contain the disallow: / syntax)
Read the remaining comments about getting the subdomain removed via GWT.
-
You are correct, but that isn't what I was asking.
user1.bloggingplatform.com and myblog.com point to the same web server files. If I put up a robots.txt on user1.b... I would effectively de-index myblog.com.
The problem we have run accross is that user205.bloggingplatform.com might be doing something shady, but instead of de-listing the subdomain google kills the primary domain from the index as well.
Because user205.bloggingplatform.com should only be used for technical reasons, and not be in Google's index I am looking for a way to tell google not to index the sub-domain.
I think the better way to solve the problem would be to change the technical subdomain's domain though so change it from user205.bloggingplatform.com to user205.bloggingplatformtesting.com.
Then google can kill that URL all it wants as I don't care.
-
bloggingplatform.com/robots.txt
and
user1.bloggingplatform.com/robots.txt
can and should be different. If you disallow at the subdomain level, only the subdomain will be affected. You can search around for other examples of this but i'm certain it works (we have a development domain that is indexed and create subdomains for all clients that aren't indexed and done via individual robots.txt files)
-
I don't think that works. Since both URLs point to the same server the robots.txt file for the test URL would completely kill the main url.
Or am I missing something?
-
Each subdomain should have a robots.txt file that blocks that specific subdomain. e.g. user1.bloggingplatform.com/robots.txt should have:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
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
-
SSL for subdomain is good or bad?
Hello, We have SSL certificate for our domain only for *.website.com, And now, we have few subdomains, as you know, we have two choices: 1. Using HTTPS for subdomain https://me.website.com, while it has problem with https://www.me.website.com (SSL error) 2. Using HTTP for subdomain, which has www and non-www with redirects. Which one is good for us?
Technical SEO | | Anetwork0 -
Subdomain question
Hi guys, I have a subdomain on my site that i want to completely remove from the index. I tried already everything to remove it but it is special situation so the only choice i have left is to remove it from Search Console in "Remove URLs" feature. So my question is: if i remove my root subdomain (example: http://subdomain.mydomain.com/) via "Remove URLs" feature in Webmaster Console, will it remove all the URLs coming from that particular domain as well? I also want to make sure that my root domain will stay untouched and be functioning normally. Thank you for advice!
Technical SEO | | odmsoft0 -
Site Redesign - Regaining Rankings
We just finished designing a whole new site that will hopefully convert better than our previous site and we are currently coding it. We are hoping to get the site out in the next month or two (or three!). We want to know what to expect in regard to our sales from SEO. If you successfully launched a site redesign and your conversion rate improved, can you answer this question? How long will it take for my rankings to regain their initial ranking and then hopefully rank even higher?
Technical SEO | | EcomLkwd0 -
Have my site been penalised ?
Hi, I recently hired a link builder (who works for a digital marketing agency and wanted to earn some extra cash ) to do some link building for me on keyword Carpet Cleaner Hire Basically , May my ranking for this work has moved from 29 up to 13 , then down to 500 + and now up to 67 ?. It's been all over the place and I am worried that maybe google thinks its unnatural or to many links etc. I looked at some of the work this chap did and there was a log of bookmarks done , apparently to increase social awareness and some articles on random forums I never heard of but the articles didn't look to good and in my eyes were a little spammy.. I don't have any messages in WMT saying I have been penalised or anything but I am naturally worried that this chap may have caused damaged and that I was manually penalised. I have since asked him to stop immediately.. does this sound normal for the ranking to be all over the place in this manner when link building ? How can I tell if I have been manually penalized in any way ? What;s the general consensus ?. Should I contact google or leave it and see what happens ? Other keywords seems to be okay though. Any advice much appreciated. thanks Sarah.
Technical SEO | | SarahCollins1 -
How to extract URLs from a site (without bringing the server down!)
Hi everybody. One of my clients is migrating to a new ecommerce platform, and we need to get a list of urls from the existing site to start mapping out the 301 redirects. Usually, I'd use a tool like Xenu or Integrity to crawl and output a list. However, the database and server setup is so bad that it can't handle the requests from these tools and it sends the site down. This, unsurprisingly, is one of the reasons for the migration. Does anybody know of a way to get a full list of urls without having to make a bunch of http requests which will kill the site? Any advice would be much appreciated!
Technical SEO | | neooptic0 -
Why did our site drop in Google rankings?
My site's URL (web address) is: http://tinyurl.com/3svn2l9 Hi there, We operate a travel site that lists numerous tours, accommodation and activities. Since 6th August 2011 we have dropped from top 10 SERP rankings of our pages to around result number 100 (page 10) and losing massive amount of visitors via Google Search. Our Yahoo and Bing rankings are still in the top10. We need your advice and quick! The last changes we have made are the following: -redirected the non-www version to the www version on the 1st August -bought advertising with a follow link in a sidebar that is being populated across the site (+4000 pages) about 2 months ago -added a blog to the website 2 weeks ago and posted 2 posts to date. Additionally, our website structure allows visitors (and bots) to see the same listings via different URLs which caused duplicate content. This has been the case since the launch of our website about 1 year ago. To prevent this duplicate content we have placed canonical tags on the individual listings pages. Why did our site all of a sudden plummet in the rankings?
Technical SEO | | Robbern0 -
Site Architecture Trade Off
Hi All I'm looking for some feedback regarding a site architecture issue I'm having with a client. They are about to enter a re-design and as such we're restructuring the site URLs and amending/ adding pages. At the moment they have ranked well off the back of original PPC landing pages that were added onto the site, such as www.company.com/service1, www.company.com/service2, etc The developer, from a developer point of view wished to create a logical site architecture with multiple levels of directories etc. I've suggested this probably isn't the best way to go, especially as the site isn't that large (200-300 pages) and that the key pages we're looking to rank should be as high up the architecture as we can make them, and that this amendment could hurt their current high rankings. It looks like the trade off may be that the client is willing to let some pages be restructured so for example, www.company.com/category/sub-category/service would be www.company.com/service. However, although from a page basis this might be a solution, is there a drawback to having this in place for only a few pages rather than sitewide? I'm just wondering if these pages might stick out like a sore thumb to Google.
Technical SEO | | PerchDigital1 -
Site problem
I moved a site earlier on in the year to a better server www.keyrs.co.uk, my main keywords being equity release - equity release calculator and equity release schemes. Since this happened the ranking have gone down and the schemes and calculator terms and have hit positions 7-8 when they were 2-3. basically my question is open to all, i am looking to see what the problem is with these pages as it is driving me nuts. All tools on SEO moz show the pages are doing well, however i must be missing something. Mike
Technical SEO | | TomBarker820