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
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • 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.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • 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.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • 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.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • 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.

      • 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. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Does Google crawl the pages which are generated via the site's search box queries?

    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.

    Does Google crawl the pages which are generated via the site's search box queries?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4
    5
    1209
    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.
    • pulseseo
      pulseseo last edited by

      For example, if I search for an 'x' item in a site's search box and if the site displays a list of results based on the query, would that page be crawled? I am asking this question because this would be a URL that is non existent on the site and hence am confused as to whether Google bots would be able to find it.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • YannickVeys
        YannickVeys last edited by

        Google crawls the pages. Google sometimes even tries the search box by typing in a random word to see what happens.

        Have a look at this url: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Agoogle.com%20inurl%3A%22search%3Fq%22 You'll see that search queries have been indexed. It happens if people link to it. It doesn't matter that the url is "non existent". It actually is, because it doesn't display a 404 error or any other error. It gives a 200 OK code, so search engines see it as a normal page. Google will probably not index a page it "makes" by filling in a random search term, but will index such a page when it is linked to.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • zeepartner
          zeepartner last edited by

          Google could crawl the dynamic URLs created by your searchbox - but it usually doesn't unless there is a link to such a dynamic url somewhere. Internal searches don't create much problems anymore, but if you want to be sure, you could always block your dynamic search results pages via robots.txt or Google Webmaster Tools (>Site configuration >URL parameters).

          So if the URL generated by internal searches is http://www.site.com/search/?searchword=search+query+here, you could add this to robots.txt:

          User-agent: *

          Disallow: /search/

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • pulseseo
            pulseseo @SuperlativB last edited by

            No I am not talking about the google search box incorporated in sites but the site's own search box. Answering your 2nd question, I meant that the URL won't be found via site navigation as it is a dynamic URL that is generated. Awaiting your response on the same.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • SuperlativB
              SuperlativB last edited by

              "if I search for an 'x' item in a site's search box and if the site displays a list of results based on the query, would that page be crawled?"
              Is it google search-box for sites your talking about?

              " I am asking this question because this would be a URL that is non existent on the site"
              **If it does'nt exist you wouldent find it? or do you mean that the page is not to find in the menu-navigation? **

              pulseseo 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • 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

              • fablau

                What's the best way to noindex pages but still keep backlinks equity?

                Hello everyone, Maybe it is a stupid question, but I ask to the experts... What's the best way to noindex pages but still keep backlinks equity from those noindexed pages? For example, let's say I have many pages that look similar to a "main" page which I solely want to appear on Google, so I want to noindex all pages with the exception of that "main" page... but, what if I also want to transfer any possible link equity present on the noindexed pages to the main page? The only solution I have thought is to add a canonical tag pointing to the main page on those noindexed pages... but will that work or cause wreak havoc in some way?

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau
                3
              • SEOhmygod

                Does content revealed by a 'show more' button get crawled by Google?

                I have a div on my website with around 500 words of unique content in, automatically when the page is first visited the div has a fixed height of 100px, showing a couple of hundred words and fading out to white, with a show more button, which when clicked, increases the height to show the full content. My question is, does Google crawl the content in that div when it renders the page? Or disregard it? Its all in the source code. Or worse, do they consider this cloaking or hidden content? It is only there to make the site more useable for customers, so i don't want to get penalised for it. Cheers

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOhmygod
                0
              • seoeuroflorist

                Google Adsbot crawling order confirmation pages?

                Hi, We have had roughly 1000+ requests per 24 hours from Google-adsbot to our confirmation pages. This generates an error as the confirmation page cannot be viewed after closing or by anyone who didn't complete the order. How is google-adsbot finding pages to crawl that are not linked to anywhere on the site, in the sitemap or linked to anywhere else? Is there any harm in a google crawler receiving a higher percentage of errors - even though the pages are not supposed to be requested. Is there anything we can do to prevent the errors for the benefit of our network team and what are the possible risks of any measures we can take? This bot seems to be for evaluating the quality of landing pages used in for Adwords so why is it trying to access confirmation pages when they have not been set for any of our adverts? We included "Disallow: /confirmation" in the robots.txt but it has continued to request these pages, generating a 403 page and an error in the log files so it seems Adsbot doesn't follow robots.txt. Thanks in advance for any help, Sam

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoeuroflorist
                0
              • FrederikTrovatten22

                ScreamingFrog won't crawl my site.

                Hey guys, My site is Netspiren.dk and when I use a tool like Screaming Frog or Integrity, it only crawls my homepage and menu's - not product-pages. Examples
                A menu: http://www.netspiren.dk/pl/Helse-Kosttilskud-Blandingsolie_57699.aspx
                A product: http://www.netspiren.dk/pi/All-Omega-3-6-9-180-kapsler_1412956_57699.aspx Is it because the products are being loaded in Javascript? 
                What's your recommendation? All best,
                Fred.

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FrederikTrovatten22
                0
              • Atlanta-SMO

                Does Google Read URL's if they include a # tag? Re: SEO Value of Clean Url's

                An ECWID rep stated in regards to an inquiry about how the ECWID url's are not customizable, that "an important thing is that it doesn't matter what these URLs look like, because search engines don't read anything after that # in URLs. " Example http://www.runningboards4less.com/general-motors#!/Classic-Pro-Series-Extruded-2/p/28043025/category=6593891 Basically all of this: #!/Classic-Pro-Series-Extruded-2/p/28043025/category=6593891 That is a snippet out of a conversation where ECWID said that dirty urls don't matter beyond a hashtag... Is that true? I haven't found any rule that Google or other search engines (Google is really the most important) don't index, read, or place value on the part of the url after a # tag.

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Atlanta-SMO
                0
              • 94501

                How can I get a list of every url of a site in Google's index?

                I work on a site that has almost 20,000 urls in its site map. Google WMT claims 28,000 indexed and a search on Google shows 33,000. I'd like to find what the difference is. Is there a way to get an excel sheet with every url Google has indexed for a site? Thanks... Mike

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 94501
                0
              • HD_Leona

                Blocking Pages Via Robots, Can Images On Those Pages Be Included In Image Search

                Hi! I have pages within my forum where visitors can upload photos.  When they upload photos they provide a simple statement about the photo but no real information about the image,definitely not enough for the page to be deemed worthy of being indexed.  The industry however is one that really leans on images and having the images in Google Image search is important to us. The url structure is like such:  domain.com/community/photos/~username~/picture111111.aspx I wish to block the whole folder from Googlebot to prevent these low quality pages from being added to Google's main SERP results.  This would be something like this: User-agent: googlebot Disallow: /community/photos/ Can  I disallow Googlebot specifically rather than just using User-agent:  * which would then allow googlebot-image to pick up the photos?  I plan on configuring a way to add meaningful alt attributes and image names to assist in visibility, but the actual act of blocking the pages and getting the images picked up... Is this possible? Thanks! Leona

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HD_Leona
                0
              • EricPacifico

                Should the sitemap include just menu pages or all pages site wide?

                I have a Drupal site that utilizes Solr, with 10 menu pages and about 4,000 pages of content. Redoing a few things and we'll need to revamp the sitemap. Typically I'd jam all pages into a single sitemap and that's it, but post-Panda, should I do anything different?

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EricPacifico
                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
              • Digital Marketers
              Free SEO Tools
              • Domain Authority Checker
              • Link Explorer
              • Keyword Explorer
              • Competitive Research
              • Brand Authority Checker
              • Local Citation 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
              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.