Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • Case Studies
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      What is your Brand Authority?
      Moz

      What is your Brand Authority?

      Check yours now
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • SEO Q&A

        Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • Case Studies

        Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Technical SEO
    4. What is the best method to block a sub-domain, e.g. staging.domain.com/ from getting indexed?

    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.

    What is the best method to block a sub-domain, e.g. staging.domain.com/ from getting indexed?

    Technical SEO
    4
    13
    7850
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • fthead9
      fthead9 last edited by

      Now that Google considers subdomains as part of the TLD I'm a little leery of testing robots.txt with something like:

      staging.domain.com
      User-agent: *
      Disallow: /

      in fear it might get the www.domain.com blocked as well. Has anyone had any success using robots.txt to block sub-domains? I know I could add a meta robots tag to the staging.domain.com pages but that would require a lot more work.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • KeriMorgret
        KeriMorgret @RyanKent last edited by

        Just make sure that when/if you copy over the staging site to the live domain that you don't copy over the robots.txt, htaccess, or whatever means you use to block that site from being indexed and thus have your shiny new site be blocked. 🙂

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • RyanKent
          RyanKent @RyanKent last edited by

          I agree. The name of your subdomain being "staging" didn't register at all with me until Matt brought it up. I was offering a generic response to the subdomain question whereas I believe Matt focused on how to handle a staging site. Interesting viewpoint.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • fthead9
            fthead9 @RyanKent last edited by

            Matt/Ryan-

            Great discussion, thanks for the input. The staging.domain.com is just one of the domains we don't want indexed. Some of them still need to be accessed by the public, some like staging could be restricted to specific IPs.

            I realize after your discussion I probably should have used a different example of a sub-domain. On the other hand it might not have sparked the discussion so maybe it was a good example 😉

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • bloggidy
              bloggidy @RyanKent last edited by

              .htaccess files can be placed at any directory level of a site so you can do it for just the subdomain or even just a directory of a domain.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • bloggidy
                bloggidy @fthead9 last edited by

                Staging URL's are typically only used for testing so rather than do a deny I would recommend using a specific ALLOW for only the IP addresses that should be allowed access.

                I would imagine you don't want it indexed because you don't want the rest of the world knowing about it.

                You can also use HTACCESS to use username/passwords. It is simple but you can give that to clients if that is a concern/need.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • RyanKent
                  RyanKent @fthead9 last edited by

                  Correct.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • RyanKent
                    RyanKent @fthead9 last edited by

                    Toren, I would not recommend that solution. There is nothing to prevent Googlebot from crawling your site via almost any IP. If you found 100 IPs used by the crawler and blocked them all, there is nothing to stop the crawler from using IP #101 next month. Once the subdomain's content is located and indexed, it will be a headache fixing the issue.

                    The best solution is always going to be a noindex meta tag on the pages you do not wish to be indexed. If that method is too much work or otherwise undesirable, you can use the robots.txt solution. There is no circumstance I can imagine where you would modify your htaccess file to block googlebot.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • RyanKent
                      RyanKent @bloggidy last edited by

                      Hi Matt.

                      Perhaps I misunderstood the question but I believe Toren only wishes to prevent the subdomain from being indexed. If you restrict subdomain access by IP it would prevent visitors from accessing the content which I don't believe is the goal.

                      bloggidy fthead9 RyanKent KeriMorgret 4 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • fthead9
                        fthead9 @bloggidy last edited by

                        Interesting, hadn't thought of using htaccess to block Googlebot.Thanks for the suggestion.

                        RyanKent bloggidy 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • fthead9
                          fthead9 @RyanKent last edited by

                          Thanks Ryan. So you don't see any issues with de-indexing the main site if I created a second robots.txt file, e.g.

                          http://staging.domin.com/robots.txt

                          User-agent: *
                          Disallow: /

                          That was my initial thought but when Google announced they consider sub-domains part of the TLD I was afraid it might affect the htp://www.domain.com versions of the pages. So you're saying the subdomain is basically treated like a folder you block on the primary domain?

                          RyanKent 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • bloggidy
                            bloggidy last edited by

                            Use an .htaccess file to only allow from certain ip addresses or ranges.

                            Here is an article describing how: http://www.kirupa.com/html5/htaccess_tricks.htm

                            fthead9 RyanKent 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                            • RyanKent
                              RyanKent last edited by

                              What is the best method to block a sub-domain, e.g. staging.domain.com/ from getting indexed?

                              Place a robots.txt file in the root of the subdomain.

                              User-agent: *
                              Disallow: /

                              This method will block the subdomain while leaving your primary domain unaffected.

                              fthead9 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                              • 1 / 1
                              • First post
                                Last post

                              Got a burning SEO question?

                              Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                              Start my free trial


                              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.

                              • See all categories

                              Related Questions

                              • Leaf-a-mark

                                Redirect multiple domains to 1 domain or not?

                                Hi there, I have client who has multiple domains that already have some PA and DA. Problem is that most websites have the same content and rank better on different keywords.
                                I want to redirect all the websites to 1 domain because it’s easier to manage and it removes any duplicate content. Question is if I redirect domain x to domain y do the rankings of domain x increase on domain y? Or is it better to keep domain x separately to generate more referral traffic to domain y? Thanks in advance! Cheers

                                Technical SEO | | Leaf-a-mark
                                0
                              • qualistay

                                Best Web-site Structure/ SEO Strategy for an online travel agency?

                                Dear Experts! I need your help with pointing me in the right direction. So far I have found scattered tips around the Internet but it's hard to make a full picture with all these bits and pieces of information without a professional advice. My primary goal is to understand how I should build my online travel agency web-site’s (https://qualistay.com) structure, so that I target my keywords on correct pages and do not create a duplicate content. In my particular case I have very similar properties in similar locations in Tenerife. Many of them are located in the same villa or apartment complex, thus, it is very hard to come up with the unique description for each of them. Not speaking of amenities and pricing blocks, which are standard and almost identical (I don’t know if Google sees it as a duplicate content). From what I have read so far, it’s better to target archive pages rather than every single property. At the moment my archive pages are: all properties (includes all property types and locations), a page for each location (includes all property types). Does it make sense adding archive pages by property type in addition OR in stead of the location ones if I, for instance, target separate keywords like 'villas costa adeje' and 'apartments costa adeje'? At the moment, the title of the respective archive page "Properties to rent in costa adeje: villas, apartments" in principle targets both keywords... Does using the same keyword in a single property listing cannibalize archive page ranking it is linking back to? Or not, unless Google specifically identifies this as a duplicate content, which one can see in Google Search Console under HTML Improvements and/or archive page has more incoming links than a single property? If targeting only archive pages, how should I optimize them in such a way that they stay user-friendly. I have created (though, not yet fully optimized) descriptions for each archive page just below the main header. But I have them partially hidden (collapsible) using a JS in order to keep visitors’ focus on the properties. I know that Google does not rank hidden content high, at least at the moment, but since there is a new algorithm Mobile First coming up in the near future, they promise not to punish mobile sites for a collapsible content and will use mobile version to rate desktop one. Does this mean I should not worry about hidden content anymore or should I move the descirption to the bottom of the page and make it fully visible? Your feedback will be highly appreciated! Thank you! Dmitry

                                Technical SEO | | qualistay
                                1
                              • CarlLarson

                                What are best options for website built with navigation drop-down menus in JavaScript, to get those menus indexed by Google?

                                This concerns f5.com, a large website with navigation menus that drop down when hovered over. The sub nav items (example: “DDoS Protection”) are not cached by Google and therefore do not distribute internal links properly to help those sub-pages rank well. Best option naturally is to change the nav menus from JS to CSS but barring that, is there another option? Will Schema SiteNavigationElement work as an alternate?

                                Technical SEO | | CarlLarson
                                0
                              • jim_shook

                                Best way to handle pages with iframes that I don't want indexed? Noindex in the header?

                                I am doing a bit of SEO work for a friend, and the situation is the following: The site is a place to discuss articles on the web. When clicking on a link that has been posted, it sends the user to a URL on the main site that is URL.com/article/view. This page has a large iframe that contains the article itself, and a small bar at the top containing the article with various links to get back to the original site. I'd like to make sure that the comment pages (URL.com/article) are indexed instead of all of the URL.com/article/view pages, which won't really do much for SEO. However, all of these pages are indexed. What would be the best approach to make sure the iframe pages aren't indexed? My intuition is to just have a "noindex" in the header of those pages, and just make sure that the conversation pages themselves are properly linked throughout the site, so that they get indexed properly. Does this seem right? Thanks for the help...

                                Technical SEO | | jim_shook
                                0
                              • yanaiguana111

                                Double Slash // in URL

                                My client is using double forward slahes in URL like this "//" is this affecting SEO?

                                Technical SEO | | yanaiguana111
                                0
                              • RefundFX

                                Ranking on google.com.au but not google.com

                                Hi there, we (www.refundfx.com.au)  rank on google.com.au for some keywords that we target, but we do not rank at all on google.com, is that because we only use a .com.au domain and not a .com domain? We are an Australian company but our customers come from all over the world so we don't want to miss out on the google.com searches. Any help in this regard is appreciated. Thanks.

                                Technical SEO | | RefundFX
                                0
                              • vernonmack

                                Blogs are best when hosted on domain, subdomain, or...?

                                I’ve heard the it is a best practice to host your blog within your site. I’ve also heard it’s best to put it on a subdomain.  What do you believe is the best home for your blog and why?

                                Technical SEO | | vernonmack
                                0
                              • kchandler

                                Block a sub-domain from being indexed

                                This is a pretty quick and simple (i'm hoping) question. What is the best way to completely block a sub domain from getting indexed from all search engines? One item i cannot use is the meta "no follow" tag. Thanks! - Kyle

                                Technical SEO | | kchandler
                                0

                              Get started with Moz Pro!

                              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                              Start my free trial
                              Products
                              • Moz Pro
                              • Moz Local
                              • Moz API
                              • Moz Data
                              • STAT
                              • Product Updates
                              Moz Solutions
                              • SMB Solutions
                              • Agency Solutions
                              • Enterprise Solutions
                              Free SEO Tools
                              • Domain Authority Checker
                              • Link Explorer
                              • Keyword Explorer
                              • Competitive Research
                              • Brand Authority Checker
                              • MozBar Extension
                              • MozCast
                              Resources
                              • Blog
                              • SEO Learning Center
                              • Help Hub
                              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                              • How-to Guides
                              • Moz Academy
                              • API Docs
                              About Moz
                              • About
                              • Team
                              • Careers
                              • Contact
                              Why Moz
                              • Case Studies
                              • Testimonials
                              Get Involved
                              • Become an Affiliate
                              • MozCon
                              • Webinars
                              • Practical Marketer Series
                              • MozPod
                              Connect with us

                              Contact the Help team

                              Join our newsletter

                              Access all your tools in one place. Whether you're tracking progress or analyzing data, everything you need is at your fingertips.

                              Moz logo
                              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                              • Accessibility
                              • Terms of Use
                              • Privacy

                              Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.