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.
No Index PDFs
-
Our products have about 4 PDFs a piece, which really inflates our indexed pages. I was wondering if I could add REL=No Index to the PDF's URL? All of the files are on a file server, so they are embedded with links on our product pages. I know I could add a No Follow attribute, but I was wondering if any one knew if the No Index would work the same or if that is even possible. Thanks!
-
The files aren't duplicate. I am familiar with using the XRobots tag. I was really just curious if my theory would work.
Thanks for all your input.
-
Hi Monica,
I presume you already check all the options before posting this question. I have concluded this by seeing your others posts/reply in this community.
Now here is my answer
To prevent your PDF file (or any non HTML file) from being listed in search results, the only way is to use the HTTP X-Robots-Tag response header, e.g.:
X-Robots-Tag: noindex
robots.txt does not prevent your page from being listed in search results.
What it does is stop the bot from crawling your page, but if a third party links to your PDF file from their website, your page will still be listed.
If you stop the bot from crawling your page using robots.txt, it will not have the chance to see the X-Robots-Tag: noindex response tag. Therefore, never ever ever disallow a page in robots.txt if you employ the X-Robots-Tag header.
I hope it helps but not very sure.
Thanks
-
-
If you want to deindex all PDF files, I recommend using the x-robots-tag in .htaccess - https://yoast.com/x-robots-tag-play/
-
If the PDFs are pdf versions of existing pages, I would set canonicals to point to the URL you do want indexed (#2 on http://moz.com/blog/htaccess-file-snippets-for-seos )
-
-
If the pdf's are in a separate folder on your site - you could mark that folder as noindex in robots.txt
As far as I know, it's not possible to add a noindex to a link.
rgds
Dirk
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 Not Indexing Pages (Wordpress)
Hello, recently I started noticing that google is not indexing our new pages or our new blog posts. We are simply getting a "Discovered - Currently Not Indexed" message on all new pages. When I click "Request Indexing" is takes a few days, but eventually it does get indexed and is on Google. This is very strange, as our website has been around since the late 90's and the quality of the new content is neither duplicate nor "low quality". We started noticing this happening around February. We also do not have many pages - maybe 500 maximum? I have looked at all the obvious answers (allowing for indexing, etc.), but just can't seem to pinpoint a reason why. Has anyone had this happen recently? It is getting very annoying having to manually go in and request indexing for every page and makes me think there may be some underlying issues with the website that should be fixed.
Technical SEO | | Hasanovic1 -
Pages are Indexed but not Cached by Google. Why?
Hello, We have magento 2 extensions website mageants.com since 1 years google every 15 days cached my all pages but suddenly last 15 days my websites pages not cached by google showing me 404 error so go search console check error but din't find any error so I have cached manually fetch and render but still most of pages have same 404 error example page : - https://www.mageants.com/free-gift-for-magento-2.html error :-Â http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.mageants.com%2Ffree-gift-for-magento-2.html&rlz=1C1CHBD_enIN803IN804&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.mageants.com%2Ffree-gift-for-magento-2.html&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.1569j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 so have any one solutions for this issues
Technical SEO | | vikrantrathore0 -
Indexing Issue of Dynamic Pages
Hi All, I have a query for which i am struggling to find out the answer. I unable to retrieve URL using "site:" query on Google SERP. However, when i enter the direct URL or with "info:" query then a snippet appears. I am not able to understand why google is not showing URL with "site:" query. Whether the page is indexed or not? Or it's soon going to be deindexed. Secondly, I would like to mention that this is a dynamic URL. The index file which we are using to generate this URL is not available to Google Bot. For instance, There are two different URL's. http://www.abc.com/browse/ --- It's a parent page.
Technical SEO | | SameerBhatia
http://www.abc.com/browse/?q=123 --- This is the URL, generated at run time using browse index file. Google unable to crawl index file of browse page as it is unable to run independently until some value will get passed in the parameter and is not indexed by Google. Earlier the dynamic URL's were indexed and was showing up in Google for "site:" query but now it is not showing up. Can anyone help me what is happening here? Please advise. Thanks0 -
Vanity URLs are being indexed in Google
We are currently using vanity URLs to track offline marketing, the vanity URL is structured as www.clientdomain.com/publication, this URL then is 302 redirected to the actual URL on the website not a custom landing page. The resulting redirected URL looks like: Â www.clientdomain.com/xyzpage?utm_source=print&utm_medium=print&utm_campaign=printcampaign. We have started to notice that some of the vanity URLs are being indexed in Google search. To prevent this from happening should we be using a 301 redirect instead of a 302 and will the Google index ignore the utm parameters in the URL that is being 301 redirect to? Â If not, any suggestions on how to handle? Thanks,
Technical SEO | | seogirl221 -
How to stop my webmail pages not to be indexed on Google ??
when i did a search in google for Site:mywebsite.com , for a list of pages indexed. Surprisingly the following come up " Webmail - Login " Although this is associated with the domain , this is a completely different server , this the rackspace email server browser interface I am sure that there is nothing on the website that links or points to this.
Technical SEO | | UIPL
So why is Google indexing it ? & how do I get it out of there. I tried in webmaster tool but I could not , as it seems like a sub-domain. Any ideas ? Thanks Naresh Sadasivan0 -
What to do with 302 redirects being indexed
Hi there, Our site's forums include permalinks that for some reason uses an intermediary URL that 302 redirects to the URL with the permalink anchor. For example: http://en.tradimo.com/learn/chart-analysis/time-frames/ In the comments, there is a permalink to the following URL; en.tradimo.com/co/50c450005f2b949e3200001b/ Â (there is no content here, and never has been). Â This URL 302 redirects to the following final URL: http://en.tradimo.com/learn/chart-analysis/time-frames/?offset=0&limit=20#50c450005f2b949e3200001b The problem is, Google is indexing the redirect URL (en.tradimo.com/co/50c450005f2b949e3200001b/) and showing duplicate content even though we are using the nofollow tag on these links. Ideally, we would directly use the last link rather than redirecting. Â Alternatively, I'd say a 301 redirect would be preferable. Â But if both aren't available, is there a way to get these pages out of the index? Is the canonical tag the best way? Â I really wish I could just add /co/ to the robots.txt file, but I think they would still be in the index, right? Thanks for your help!
Technical SEO | | etruvian0 -
Index.php and 301 redirect with Joomla
Hi, I'm running Joomla 1.7 with SEF on and I'm trying to do a htaccess redirect which fails. I have approximately 100 in effect so far and all working fine, but I have one snag. Index.php is not working as I need it to when it's redirected to www.myurl.com/ If I turn on index.php redirect to root using this code #index.php to root
Technical SEO | | NaescentAdam
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^myurl.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.myurl.com$
RewriteRule ^index.php$ "http://www.myurl.com/" [R=301,L] And then go to www.myurl.com/test.html I'm redirected to the homepage. I think this is because all pages are index.php in joomla. SEOMOZ and Google both think that index.php and root are duplicate pages. Does anyone have any advice for overcoming this? Thanks, Adam0 -
Why google index my IP URL
hi guys, a question please. if site:112.65.247.14 , you can see google index our website IP address, this could duplicate with our darwinmarketing.com content pages. i am not quite sure why google index my IP pages while index domain pages, i understand this could because of backlink, internal link and etc, but i don't see obvious issues there, also i have submit request to google team to remove ip address index, but seems no luck. Please do you have any other suggestion on this? i was trying to do change of address setting in Google Webmaster Tools, but didn't allow as it said "Restricted to root level domains only", any ideas? Thank you! boson
Technical SEO | | DarwinChinaSEO0