Removed Subdomain Sites Still in Google Index
-
Hey guys,
I've got kind of a strange situation going on and I can't seem to find it addressed anywhere. I have a site that at one point had several development sites set up at subdomains. Those sites have since launched on their own domains, but the subdomain sites are still showing up in the Google index. However, if you look at the cached version of pages on these non-existent subdomains, it lists the NEW url, not the dev one in the little blurb that says "This is Google's cached version of www.correcturl.com." Clearly Google recognizes that the content resides at the new location, so how come the old pages are still in the index? Attempting to visit one of them gives a "Server Not Found" error, so they are definitely gone.
This is happening to a couple of sites, one that was launched over a year ago so it doesn't appear to be a "wait and see" solution.
Any suggestions would be a huge help. Thanks!!
-
Right. I get that they don't exist on your site currently, but when they did Google indexed them so they exist in some form within Google, but Google had never been told they had permanently moved (via 301). The good news is that you don't have to resurrect the entire site. You can simply modify the appropriate file (htaccess if you're on Apache, IIS if Window's server) and make certain that Google knows any page it's looking for at devsite.yoursite.com is now at www.correcturl.com. Cheers!
-
Ryan,
Thanks for your quick response! The reason we aren't doing 301s or noindex on these sites is that they no longer exist. We would have to essentially resurrect these dev sites for the sole purpose of redirecting. Since Google's cached version is the new/current url wouldn't that imply that they are aware of the change and the subdomains are hanging around for another reason?
We typically noindex dev sites but a couple of them slipped by without.
-
Hi Sarah. Have you put in 301 redirects in the htaccess file for these subdomains? You may want to consider going through the change of address tool in Google Webmaster Tools as well. The problem seems to be that Google crawled and indexed the old subdomains and still has references to the old pages that existed on them. Ultimately using NOINDEX on development sites and then using a catchall 301 redirect should help clean this up for you. Cheers!
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
-
Number of index pages in web master is different from site:mydomainname
Google says one to discover whether my pages is index in Google is site:domain name of my website: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/34444?hl=enas mention in web page above so basically according to that i can know totally pages indexed for my website right:it shows me when type (site:domain name ) 300 but it says in Google web master that i have 100000so which is the real number of index page 300 or 1000000 as web master says and why i get 300 when using site:domain name even Google mention that it is way to discover index paged
Technical SEO | | Jamalon0 -
Round 3 & still no indexing for varicose veins :-(
Greetings from 11 degrees C partly suuny Wetherby 🙂 Every so oftem you hit an SEO mission that just consistently hits a brick wall. For the third time i'm investigating why this page:
Technical SEO | | Nightwing
http://www.collegeofphlebology.com/varicose-veins/what-are-they/ fails to even reach the bottom of page 3. Ive gone back to basic and ran an SEO audit of sorts in an attempt to see if I'd missed anything. Here is the audit: http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/audit-for-moz.jpg So my question is please: From a technical SEO perspective is there anything wrong with this page http://www.collegeofphlebology.com/varicose-veins/what-are-they/ to explain why it does not rank for target term "Varicose Veins" Thanks in advance,
David0 -
Does Google index has expiration?
Hi, I have this in mind and I think you can help me. Suppose that I have a pagin something like this: www.mysite.com/politics where I have a list of the current month news. Great, everytime the bot check this url, index the links that are there. What happens next month, all that link are not visible anymore by the user unless he search in a search box or google. Does google keep those links? The current month google check that those links are there, but next month are not, but they are alive. So, my question is, Does google keep this links for ever if they are alive but nowhere in the site (the bot not find them anymore but they work)? Thanks
Technical SEO | | informatica8100 -
Will SEO Moz index our keywords if the site is ALL https?
We have a site coming into beta next week. Playing around with SEO Moz, I had trouble getting the keywords to rank at all. Was this because the site is entirely https? If yes, what else can SEO Moz NOT do if the site is all https? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | OTSEO0 -
Removing irrelevant items from Google News?
A client wants to know if it's possible to get Google to remove stories from Google News feeds if those stories have nothing to do with the client? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Technical SEO | | JamesAMartin0 -
How a google bot sees your site
So I have stumbled across various websites like this: http://www.smart-it-consulting.com/internet/google/googlebot-spoofer/ The concept here is to be able to view your site as a googlebot sees it. However, the results are a little puzzling. Google is reading the text on my page but not the title tags according to the results. Are websites like this accurate OR does Google not read title tags and H1 tags anymore? Also on a slighly related note. I noticed the results show the navigation bar is being read first by google, is this bad and should the navigation bar be optimized for keywords as well? If it did, it would read a bit funny and the "humans" would be confused.
Technical SEO | | StreetwiseReports0 -
Can a site be removed from alexa?
let's say you have complete control over the webserver, and the hosting server. is there a way to set it up so that alexa statistics CANNOT be gained?
Technical SEO | | highersourcesites0 -
My site is live 6 months but still has no PageRank?
I launched my site back in November and in the last 6 months have been pretty stoked about some of the links we've received from some .edu 's and some other big sites.... but I still don't register any PageRank. Is this normal or have I made some fatal flaw that is killing me in the eyes of google? Thanks Brian Clapp Founder, SportsTVJobs.com
Technical SEO | | sportstvjobs0