When You Add a Robots.txt file to a website to block certain URLs, do they disappear from Google's index?
-
I have seen several websites recently that have have far too many webpages indexed by Google, because for each blog post they publish, Google might index the following:
- www.mywebsite.com/blog/title-of-post
- www.mywebsite.com/blog/tag/tag1
- www.mywebsite.com/blog/tag/tag2
- www.mywebsite.com/blog/category/categoryA
- etc
My question is: if you add a robots.txt file that tells Google NOT to index pages in the "tag" and "category" folder, does that mean that the previously indexed pages will eventually disappear from Google's index? Or does it just mean that newly created pages won't get added to the index? Or does it mean nothing at all? thanks for any insight!
-
Hi William
If the pages in question are
- already indexed by Google then if you block them via the robots.txt , they will show up in search result but the meta description will say something along the lines of
A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt – learn more.
2) not indexed by Google for example on a new site , they don't follow it and the pages does not come up in search directly BUT if some external sites link to the pages then they can still come up in the SERP some time down the track.
Your best bet to keep the page out of the public SERP index is the meta robots tag : http://www.robotstxt.org/meta.html
-
William, If the pages in question are linked to from external resources the robots.txt file will not prevent the pages from appearing in the index. Per Moz's Robots.txt and Meta Robots best practices, "the robots.txt tells the engines not to crawl the given URL, but that they may keep the page in the index and display it in in results.
To prevent all robots from indexing a page on your site, place the following meta tag into the section of your page:
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 to do to index all my links of my website?
Ok, i have a new website, with only 14.000 page indexed by google, but the potential is big, 1-2 million pages. What i have to do, to force somehow google to index my website faster? This is my website: https://vmag.ro/
On-Page Optimization | | TeodorMarin0 -
Fixing Index Errors in the new Google Search Console - Help
Hi, So I have started using the new Search Console and for one of my clients, there are a few 'Index Coverage Errors'. In the old version you could simply, analyse, test and then mark any URLs as fixed - does anyone know if that is possible in the new version? There are options to validate errors but no 'mark as fixed' options. Do you need to validate the errors before you can fix them?
On-Page Optimization | | daniel-brooks0 -
Indexing Issues
One of the main pages on my site, http://www.waikoloavacationrentals.com/kolea-rentals/condos, I have been having a hard time getting google to index it correctly or at all. It is one of the top pages on my site and should be in my sub links in google, but it is not even showing up in searches. Any input would be appreciated. The only red flap issue is the number of outgoing links, but that is the way the page is supposed to be. I would assume most real estate listing pages are very similar. Ultimately when you look at traffic, time on page, inbound links, etc. it is one of the top pages on my site in all those categories. Any input would be greatly appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | RobDalton0 -
Google index new data from my website page
Hi All, We have pages which are created few weeks before hand for Movie reviews in those pages we add value with adding the Movie cast and crew info and what ever info possible before the movie releases. The the movie releases we watch the movies and write reviews which is 500+ words. Now the issue is the pages are indexed a week before... How can i have these review pages scanned immediately when i have the complete review as the review content is not indexed for 3 to 5 days and the first day or 2 is when its important for the reviews to be seen in Google. Regards
On-Page Optimization | | AlexisWithers0 -
Will google put logo's in as author snippets?
Are they smart enough to tell it is not a mug shot and then not show it? Has anyone ever seen a logo as a snippet? What are some of the factors to with whether they show them or not?
On-Page Optimization | | Adsau0 -
Robots file include sitemap
Hello, I see that google, facebook and moz... have robots.txt include sitemap at the footer.
On-Page Optimization | | JohnHuynh
Eg: http://www.google.com.vn/robots.txt Sitemap: http://www.google.com/sitemaps_webmasters.xml
Sitemap: http://www.google.com/ventures/sitemap_ventures.xml Should I include my sitemap file (sitemap.xml) at the footer of robots.txt and why should do this? Thanks,0 -
Modify URL, how to re-index
hello, I have just modified URL, do I need to re-submit sitemap or something else to search engines?
On-Page Optimization | | JohnHuynh0 -
Rethinking company's monthly content production process.
I'm trying to rethink my company's content production process. I believe that we're stuck using a formula that works but can surely be improved. Our Current Process It essentially boils down to posting a certain number of content pieces per month for each client. After the pages are approved and live, there isn't much thought given to them. What We're Thinking After taking a step back, we realize now that a lot of these clients have sites with a tremendous amount of content that is rarely, if ever, revisited. In hopes of creating higher quality content and avoiding having to write that certain number of pieces per month, we're investigating alternative strategies to ensure each client has fresh content. What We're Looking Into Page Edits/Refreshes - I'm beginning to wonder if we can get similar gains by simply refreshing the content that already exists. We can include additional keywords and improve the content in a fraction of the time that it takes to produce a new piece. We're struggling to come up with a process for refreshing the content, however. Ideally we'd be implementing a process where content is revisited 6-12 months, but that still doesn't take care of the problem of creating too much new content. Simplified Version I believe that my company is creating too much content. Editing/refreshing seems like a better use of resources, but I have no idea how to implement a process and develop procedures. Questions What does your content production process look like? Do you produce a certain number a month, a quarter, as needed, etc? How do you go about refreshing your content?
On-Page Optimization | | SeoWebMechanix0