Using folder blocked by robots.txt before uploaded to indexed folder - is that OK?
-
I have a folder "testing" within my domain which is a folder added to the robots.txt. My web developers use that folder "testing" when we are creating new content before uploading to an indexed folder. So the content is uploaded to the "testing" folder at first (which is blocked by robots.txt) and later uploaded to an indexed folder, yet permanently keeping the content in the "testing" folder. Actually, my entire website's content is located within the "testing" - so same URL structure for all pages as indexed pages, except it starts with the "testing/" folder.
Question: even though the "testing" folder will not be indexed by search engines, is there a chance search engines notice that the content is at first uploaded to the "testing" folder and therefore the indexed folder is not guaranteed to get the content credit, since search engines see the content in the "testing" folder, despite the "testing" folder being blocked by robots.txt? Would it be better that I password protecting this "testing" folder?
Thx
-
good observation....
-
Yep, just to jump in on the above, if a competitor is paying attention to your robots.txt file, they might notice a sweet stash of content under the /testing folder that they can nab. I have actually seen something similar happen in the past in a competitive SEO niche, so something to bear in mind.
-
As long as the correct robots.txt setting has been applied to the /testing folder, then you do not have anything to worry about.
Considering that it is a staging environment, I would recommend securing it with a password just to be safe and secure with your non-production site content.
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 to crawled URLs subsequently blocked by robots.txt?
We have a very large store with 278,146 individual product pages. Since these are all various sizes and packaging quantities of less than 200 product categories my feeling is that Google would be better off making sure our category pages are indexed. I would like to block all product pages via robots.txt until we are sure all category pages are indexed, then unblock them. Our product pages rarely change, no ratings or product reviews so there is little reason for a search engine to revisit a product page. The sales team is afraid blocking a previously indexed product page will result in in it being removed from the Google index and would prefer to submit the categories by hand, 10 per day via requested crawling. Which is the better practice?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AspenFasteners1 -
Indexing isolated webpages
Hi all,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tarek_Lel
We are running a classifieds website.Due to technical limitations, we will probably not be able to list or search expired ads, but we still can view ad details view page if you landed on expired ad from external page (or google search results).Our concern is, if the ad page is still exists, but it's totally isolated from the website (i.e not found by search option on the website and no following site links) will google remove it from the index?Thanks, T0 -
Google and PDF indexing
It was recently brought to my attention that one of the PDFs on our site wasn't showing up when looking for a particular phrase within the document. The user was trying to search only within our site. Once I removed the site restriction - I noticed that there was another site using the exact same PDF. It appears Google is indexing that PDF but not ours. The name, title, and content are the same. Is there any way to get around this? I find it interesting as we use GSA and within GSA it shows up for the phrase. I have to imagine Google is saying that it already has the PDF and therefore is ignoring our PDF. Any tricks to get around this? BTW - both sites rightfully should have the PDF. One is a client site and they are allowed to host the PDFs created for them. However, I'd like Mathematica to also be listed. Query: no site restriction (notice: Teach for america comes up #1 and Mathematica is not listed). https://www.google.com/search?as_q=&as_epq=HSAC_final_rpt_9_2013.pdf&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&lr=&cr=&as_qdr=all&as_sitesearch=&as_occt=any&safe=images&tbs=&as_filetype=pdf&as_rights=&gws_rd=ssl#q=HSAC_final_rpt_9_2013.pdf+"Teach+charlotte"+filetype:pdf&as_qdr=all&filter=0 Query: site restriction (notice that it doesn't find the phrase and redirects to any of the words) https://www.google.com/search?as_q=&as_epq=HSAC_final_rpt_9_2013.pdf&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&lr=&cr=&as_qdr=all&as_sitesearch=&as_occt=any&safe=images&tbs=&as_filetype=pdf&as_rights=&gws_rd=ssl#as_qdr=all&q="Teach+charlotte"+site:www.mathematica-mpr.com+filetype:pdf
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jpfleiderer0 -
Appropriate Use of Canonical Tag
Hello, I am creating study guides for books with tabbed elements for each study guide. For example, for Othello, I'd have 3 tabs like so: 1. Overview page = xyz.com/othello 2. Context = xyz.com/othello/context 3. Characters = xyz.com/othello/characters I noticed that YouTube channels have tabbed elements and use the canonical. For example, all of the tabbed sections on https://www.youtube.com/user/Nerdist/channels have this canonical http://www.youtube.com/user/Nerdist"> In my case, would it be a correct use of the canonical tag to include rel="canonical" href = http://xyz.com/othello on each of the tabbed pages? Also, where exactly in the header should the canonical be placed? Before or after open graph / twitter cards?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stageagent0 -
Why my site it's not being indexed?
Hello.... I got to tell that I feel like a newbie (I am, but know I feel like it)... We were working with a client until january this year, they kept going on their own until september that they contacted us again... Someone on the team that handled things while we were gone, updated it´s robots.txt file to Disallow everything... for maybe 3 weeks before we were back in.... Additionally they were working on a different subdomain, the new version of the site and of course the didn't block the robots on that one. So now the whole site it's been duplicated, even it´s content, the exact same pages exist on the suddomain that was public the same time the other one was blocked. We came in changes the robots.txt file on both server, resend all the sitemaps, sent our URL on google+... everything the book says... but the site it´s not getting indexed. It's been 5 weeks now and no response what so ever. We were highly positioned on several important keywords and now it's gone. I now you guys can help, any advice will be highly appreciated. thanks Dan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | daniel.alvarez0 -
Certain Product Pages Not Indexing
Hey All, We discovered an issue where new product pages on our site were not getting indexed because a "noindex" tag was inadvertently being added to section when those pages were created. We removed the noindex tag in late April and some of the pages that had not been previously indexed are now showing up, but others are still not getting indexed and I'd appreciate some help on why this could be. Here is an example of a page that was not in the index but is now showing after removal of noindex: http://www.cloud9living.com/san-diego/gaslamp-quarter-food-tour And here is an example of a page that is still not showing in the index: http://www.cloud9living.com/atlanta/race-a-ferrari UPDATE: The above page is now showing after I manually submitted it in WMT. I had previously submitted another page like a month ago and it was still not indexing so I thought the manual submission was a dead end. However, it just so happens that the above URL just had its Page Title and H1 updated to something more specific and less duplicative so I am currently running a test to see if that's the problem with these pages not indexing. Will update this soon. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GManSEO0 -
Robots.txt file - How to block thosands of pages when you don't have a folder path
Hello.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Unity
Just wondering if anyone has come across this and can tell me if it worked or not. Goal:
To block review pages Challenge:
The URLs aren't constructed using folders, they look like this:
www.website.com/default.aspx?z=review&PG1234
www.website.com/default.aspx?z=review&PG1235
www.website.com/default.aspx?z=review&PG1236 So the first part of the URL is the same (i.e. /default.aspx?z=review) and the unique part comes immediately after - so not as a folder. Looking at Google recommendations they show examples for ways to block 'folder directories' and 'individual pages' only. Question:
If I add the following to the Robots.txt file will it block all review pages? User-agent: *
Disallow: /default.aspx?z=review Much thanks,
Davinia0 -
How do you implement dynamic SEO-friendly URLs using Ajax without using hashbangs?
We're building a new website platform and are using Ajax as the method for allowing users to select from filters. We want to dynamically insert elements into the URL as the filters are selected so that search engines will index multiple combinations of filters. We're struggling to see how this is possible using symfony framework. We've used www.gizmodo.com as an example of how to achieve SEO and user-friendly URLs but this is only an example of achieving this for static content. We would prefer to go down a route that didn't involve hashbangs if possible. Does anyone have any experience using hashbangs and how it affected their site? Any advice on the above would be gratefully received.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sayers1