Meta robots at every page rather than using robots.txt for blocking crawlers? How they'll get indexed if we block crawlers?
-
Hi all,
The suggestion to use meta robots tag rather than robots.txt file is to make sure the pages do not get indexed if their hyperlinks are available anywhere on the internet. I don't understand how the pages will be indexed if the entire site is blocked? Even though there are page links are available, will Google really index those pages? One of our site got blocked from robots file but internal links are available on internet for years which are not been indexed. So technically robots.txt file is quite enough right? Please clarify and guide me if I'm wrong.
Thanks
-
I agree with Gaston's approach right up to step 4. If you add the no-indexed pages back into a block in the robots.txt file, you'll end up back where you started from. Because Google will still discover the no-indexed URLs elsewhere and the robots,txt block will stop them from discovering the no-index, and the URLs will likely start to get added to the index again.
No-indexed URLs must not be blocked in robots.txt. Those two processes are mutually exclusive.
-
Hi there,
TLDR; The solution to deindexing and never index again:
- Allow (with robots.txt) the web to be crawable
- Aplly meta robots tag: noindex,follow
- Wait somte weeks to be completely deindexed
- block the entire site/section with robots.txt
Robots.txt and the robots meta tag can make the same effect, but to understand them must be analyzed separatedly.
-
Robots.txt, here you just tell bots where they can go BEFORE they crawl any of the website. This is just a signal, not a directive... Because robots can choose to ignore the what's in the file. Here you can block from the entire web, to an entire section or just specific pages. More info: Robots.txt official page and a really cool and complete guide to robots.txt
-
Robots meta tag, with it you have more signals to tell, the most used are: noindex, nofollow and follow, due to the usual issues about indexing. More info: Robots.txt offical page, Google developers, Meta Robots directive - Moz and a complete guide to meta robots tag - YOAST.
Hope this is what you wanted.
Best luck
GR.
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
-
What happens when non-relevant topic is getting more visitors?
Hi all, So we have a sub-domain which has user generated content like forums. Mostly the content is all about our product. Few times some spammy threads get posted and we delete them regularly. I have noticed that a non-relevant thread has been posted which about a movie. But this page got hundreds of clicks. I just wonder will this hurts being off topic and movie torrent thread or helps being receiving hundreds of visitors? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Any benefit to splitting up links from one company to diff pages?
We are the presenting sponsor for this big event in our area (Chasco Fiesta). As part of being their sponsor, their website has linked to us in five different places on their site. But it's all to our homepage. Would there be any benefit to having them link to other pages on our site instead of just our homepage (assuming the other pages are a reasonable expectation for the user, of course)? Thanks, Ruben
Algorithm Updates | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
De-indexed homepage in Google - very confusing.
A website I provide content for has just suffered a de-indexed homepage in Google (not in any of the other search engines) - all the other pages remained indexed as usual. Client asked me what might be the problem and I just couldn't figure it out - no linkbuilding has ever been carried out so clean backlink profile, etc. I just resubmitted it and it's back in its usual place, and has maintained the rankings (and PR) it had before it disappeared a few days ago. I checked WMT and no warnings or issues there. Any idea why this might've happened?
Algorithm Updates | | McTaggart0 -
Getting squeezed out of SERP by local results
Hi All, I wanted to get some opinions on a phenomenon that I know others are dealing with... We have a client who is an online-only business (though they do have an office/warehouse location). The on-page is great, and the site has good domain authority for its niche. The issue is that Google is localizing most of their search terms - And our client is getting squeezed down and out in the SERPs by the local listings. How is everyone dealing with this issue? It seems like we'll never get the site to out-rank the local listings in a given geo. Thanks, Lee
Algorithm Updates | | vectormedia0 -
On-page Optimization
Hi, I have two campaigns and neither have any statistics for on-page optimization. Am I doing something wrong or how do I make these stats appear? I would like to improve my website. Thank you in advanced for any pointers or shared experience you may give me!
Algorithm Updates | | Pixeltistic0 -
How do you get photo galleries indexed on Google News?
I work for a news site and some of our photo galleries get indexed by Google News while others never do. I'm trying to determine why some are more successful than others even though they all follow the same guidelines regarding keyword-rich headlines & copy, h1s, etc. When comparing what's been indexed in the past with current galleries, there doesn't appear to be an obvious pattern. Can anyone share some insight into this?
Algorithm Updates | | BostonWright0 -
Why doesn't everyone just purchase a .org tld?
Hi, I am new-ish to SEO, and something just dawned on me today. I have read in many places that .org domains rank higher (even if slightly) than .coms. Then why doesn't everyone just purchase .org TLDs? For example, in my industry, most good .com domain names are taken, but .orgs are almost all free. Why not purchase a .org and capitalize on exact match search results? seomoz is .org and it's far from being a non-profit 🙂
Algorithm Updates | | Eladla0 -
Will google punish us for using formulaic keyword-rich content on different pages on our site?
We have 100 to 150 words of SEO text per page on www.storitz.com. Our challenge is that we are a storage property aggregator with hundreds of metros. We have to distinguish each city with relevant and umique text. If we use a modular approach where we mix and match pre-written (by us) content, demographic and location oriented text in an attempt to create relevant and unique text for multiple (hundreds) of pages on our site, will we be devalued by Google?
Algorithm Updates | | Storitz0