Test site got indexed in Google - What's the best way of getting the pages removed from the SERP's?
-
Hi Mozzers,
I'd like your feedback on the following:
the test/development domain where our sitebuilder works on got indexed, despite all warnings and advice.
The content on these pages is in active use by our new site. Thus to prevent duplicate content penalties we have put a noindex in our robots.txt. However off course the pages are currently visible in the SERP's.
What's the best way of dealing with this? I did not find related questions although I think this is a mistake that is often made. Perhaps the answer will also be relevant for others beside me.
Thank you in advance, greetings, Folko
-
Thanks for your input Hutch. Both incidents you described have occured already. I'm on top of it but my developer seems lost.
-
Thank you Don, looks promising. I'll dive right into it.
-
Once you remove it in GWT make sure to update both your robots.txt to not index along with adding the no index tag to all pages on your test site. Be careful that you don't accidentally push either the robots or noindex tag onto your live site.
The reason that you want to do both is, while the robots is the best option, if somehow a page on your test site gets linked it can show up in Google for a few days until Google re-crawls your whole site and sees that the robots says not to index anything. You can tell if this problem is happening in your analytics if you see traffic to test pages spike up for a few days every couple of months.
-
Cyrus Shepard covers removal of a site from Google in a blog post
http://moz.com/blog/we-deindexed-followerwonk
Hopefully this answers your question.
Don
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
-
"Cookies are required to access this site" in Google Serp?
One of my clients is having an issue where their Google search result title and description are just showing "Cookies are required to access this site." instead of the actual meta values. The problem is only in Google as Yahoo and Bing seem to be fine. You can see in the image below or by running a search your self for "be well bodyworks longmont" I've never seen anything like it and couldn't find any reference to anyone else having this issue... I would very much appreciate any insight as to what is going on. Thanks! c5PGL
Technical SEO | | CampfireDigital0 -
Do I submit a sitemap for a highly dynamic site or not? If so, what's the best way to go about doing it?
I do SEO for online boutique marketplace. I've been here for about 4 weeks and no one's done there SEO (they've been around for about 5 years), so there's lots to do. A big concern is whether or not to submit a sitemap, and if I do submit one, what's the best way to go about doing one.
Technical SEO | | Jane.com0 -
Why are only PDFs on my client's site being indexed, and not actual pages?
My client has recently built a new site (we did not build this), which is a subdomain of their main site. The new site is: https://addstore.itelligencegroup.com/uk/en/. (Their main domain is: http://itelligencegroup.com/uk/) This new Addstore site has recently gone live (in the past week or so) and so far, Google appears to have indexed 56 pdf files that are on the site, but it hasn't indexed any of the actual web pages yet. I can't figure out why though. I've checked the robots.txt file for the site which appears to be fine: https://addstore.itelligencegroup.com/robots.txt. Does anyone have any ideas about this?
Technical SEO | | mfrgolfgti0 -
Why am I not showing up in the SERP's or Google Local?
I have been trying to optimise the following site for both Google SERP's and Google Local - Pixel Primate The URL has been around for around 3 years now but they just updated the website and launched it in December 2012. I did the on-page optimisation early in January 2013 and Google seems to have indexed the changes, for the home page at least. One major keyword I am targeting for the home page is 'Web Design Leicester'. I understand that the DA is fairly low (24) so this is something I need to improve. However, I've experienced positive results fairly quickly from just on-page optimisation for other sites I have worked on. The site just doesn't seem to be ranking at all for any keywords. Maybe the industry type is just extremely competitve but I find it very strange to not be visible anywhere in the SERPs. The site does not seem to have any penalties as it ranks for 'Pixel Primate' and all pages appear when doing a site: search. Also what's strange is that I set up the Google Local listing years ago but it doesn't appear anywhere in the local listing, not even when I search for it manually. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Technical SEO | | CWseo0 -
Will Google index a site with white text? Will it give it bad ratings?
Will google not rank a site bc pretty much all the copy is white (and the background is all white)? Here's the site in question: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6w24f6h5p0zaxhg/Garrison_PLAY.vs2-static.pdf https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fwudppvwy2khpau/t43NozpG3E/Garrison_PLAY.vs3.jpg thanks--if you need me to clarify more let me know TM Humphries LocalSearched.com
Technical SEO | | CloudGuys0 -
Mobile site rank on Google S.E. instead of desktop site.
Hello, all SEOers~ Today, I would like to hear your opinion regarding on Mobile site and duplicate contents issue. I have a mobile version of our website that is hosted on a subdomain (m instead www). Site is targeting UK and Its essentially the same content, formatted differently. So every URL on www exists also at the "m" subdomain and is identical content. (there are some different contents, yet I could say about 90% or more contents are same) Recently I've noticed that search results are showing links to our mobile site instead of the desktop site. (Google UK) I have a sitemap.xml for both sites, the mobile sitemap defined as follows: I didn't block googlebot from mobile site and also didn't block googlebot-mobile from desktop site. I read and watched Google webmaster tool forum and related video from Matt Cutts. I found many opinion that there is possibility which cause duplicate contents issue and I should do one of followings. 1. Block googlebot from mobile site. 2. Use canonical Tag on mobile site which points to desktop site. 3. Create and develop different contents (needless to say...) Do you think duplicate contents issue caused my mobile site rank on S.E. instead of my desktop site? also Do you think those method will help to show my desktop site on S.E.? I was wondering that I have multi-country sites which is same site format as I mentioned above. However, my other country sites are totally doing fine on Google. Only difference that I found is my other country sites have different Title & Meta Tag comparing to desktop site, but my UK mobile site has same Title & Meta Tag comparing to desktop. Do you think this also has something to do with current problem? Please people~! Feel free to make some comments and share your opinion. Thanks for reading my long long explanation.
Technical SEO | | Artience0 -
Whats the best way to stop search results from being indexed?
I Have a Wordpress Site, and just realized that the search results are being indexed on Google creating duplicate content. Whats the best way for me to stop these search result pages from being indexed without stopping the regulars and important pages and posts from being indexed as well? **The typical search query looks like this: ** http://xxx.com/?s=Milnerton&search=search&srch_type AND this also includes results that are linked to the "view more" such as:
Technical SEO | | stefanok
http://xxx.com/index.php?s=viewmore Your help would be much appreciated. regards Stef0 -
What is the best way to change your sites folder structure?
Hi, Our site was originally created with a very flat folder structure - most of the pages are at the top level. Because we will adding more content I want to tidy up the structure first. I just wanted to check what the best way to go about this was. Is it best to: First configure all the new 301 redirects to point to the new pages, while leaving the actual links on our site pointing to the old pages. Then changing the links on the site after a few weeks. Configure the redirects and change the actual links on my website at the same time to point to the new locations. My thinking that if I go with option 1 route then I will give Google a chance to process all the redirects and change the locations in their index before I start pointing them to the new locations. But does it make any difference? What is the best wat to go about making this sort of change to minimize any loss in rankings, page rank etc? Thanks for the help.
Technical SEO | | Maximise0