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.
Google is indexing my directories
-
I'm sure this has been asked before, but I was looking at all of Google's results for my site and I found dozens of results for directories such as:
Index of /scouting/blog/wp-includes/js/swfupload/plugins
Obviously I don't want those indexed. How do I prevent Google from indexing those?
Also, it only seems to be doing it with Wordpress, not any of the directories on my main site. (We have a wordpress blog, which is only a portion of the site)
-
Thanks for expanding on that!
a) There are no pages in these folders; they're just directories full of Wordpress config stuff
b) I already have Yoast and have tag pages noindexed. All the directories I'm referring to are similar to the path I showed above.
c) If I request removal of specific folders, will it also remove all the files within the folder?\
Thanks!
-
To elaborate a little on what he said
a) yes block the folders with content you don't want indexed in robots.txt - but that is not enough you need to add the noindex to the pages as well for an extra measure.
b) get the YOAST seo plugin for wordpress installed on your site and configure it to follow,noindex these page. look at other sections you don't want indexed too like tag pages. This plugin is easy to use and will help suggest default settings.
c) yes you can go into WMT to request removal of specific folders and urls and Google will quickly get them out of the index for you instead of waiting for them to age away. Your robots.txt should be in place before doing this to make sure it's permanent.
-
Here are your options:
- Robots.txt - http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=93708 - easy option.
- Noindex tags - http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-noindex-behavior/
- Removal request - https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=59819
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
-
Google is indexing bad URLS
Hi All, The site I am working on is built on Wordpress. The plugin Revolution Slider was downloaded. While no longer utilized, it still remained on the site for some time. This plugin began creating hundreds of URLs containing nothing but code on the page. I noticed these URLs were being indexed by Google. The URLs follow the structure: www.mysite.com/wp-content/uploads/revslider/templates/this-part-changes/ I have done the following to prevent these URLs from being created & indexed: 1. Added a directive in my Htaccess to 404 all of these URLs 2. Blocked /wp-content/uploads/revslider/ in my robots.txt 3. Manually de-inedex each URL using the GSC tool 4. Deleted the plugin However, new URLs still appear in Google's index, despite being blocked by robots.txt and resolving to a 404. Can anyone suggest any next steps? I Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Tom3_150 -
Desktop & Mobile XML Sitemap Submitted But Only Desktop Sitemap Indexed On Google Search Console
Hi! The Problem We have submitted to GSC a sitemap index. Within that index there are 4 XML Sitemaps. Including one for the desktop site and one for the mobile site. The desktop sitemap has 3300 URLs, of which Google has indexed (according to GSC) 3,000 (approx). The mobile sitemap has 1,000 URLs of which Google has indexed 74 of them. The pages are crawlable, the site structure is logical. And performing a Landing Page URL search (showing only Google/Organic source/medium) on Google Analytics I can see that hundreds of those mobile URLs are being landed on. A search on mobile for a longtail keyword from a (randomly selected) page shows a result in the SERPs for the mobile page that judging by GSC has not been indexed. Could this be because we have recently added rel=alternate tags on our desktop pages (and of course corresponding canonical ones on mobile). Would Google then 'not index' rel=alternate page versions? Thanks for any input on this one. PmHmG
Technical SEO | | AlisonMills0 -
How can I get a photo album indexed by Google?
We have a lot of photos on our website. Unfortunately most of them don't seem to be indexed by Google. We run a party website. One of the things we do, is take pictures at events and put them on the site. An event page with a photo album, can have anywhere between 100 and 750 photo's. For each foto's there is a thumbnail on the page. The thumbnails are lazy loaded by showing a placeholder and loading the picture right before it comes onscreen. There is no pagination of infinite scrolling. Thumbnails don't have an alt text. Each thumbnail links to a picture page. This page only shows the base HTML structure (menu, etc), the image and a close button. The image has a src attribute with full size image, a srcset with several sizes for responsive design and an alt text. There is no real textual content on an image page. (Note that when a user clicks on the thumbnail, the large image is loaded using JavaScript and we mimic the page change. I think it doesn't matter, but am unsure.) I'd like that full size images should be indexed by Google and found with Google image search. Thumbnails should not be indexed (or ignored). Unfortunately most pictures aren't found or their thumbnail is shown. Moz is giving telling me that all the picture pages are duplicate content (19,521 issues), as they are all the same with the exception of the image. The page title isn't the same but similar for all images of an album. Example: On the "A day at the park" event page, we have 136 pictures. A site search on "a day at the park" foto, only reveals two photo's of the albums. 3QolbbI.png QTQVxqY.jpg mwEG90S.jpg
Technical SEO | | jasny0 -
Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions are not Indexing in Google
Hello Every one, I have a Wordpress website in which i installed All in SEO plugin and wrote meta titles and descriptions for each and every page and posts and submitted website to index. But after Google crawl the Meta Titles and Descriptions shown by Google are something different that are not found in Content. Even i verified the Cached version of the website and gone through Source code that crawled at that moment. the meta title which i have written is present there. Apart from this, the same URL's are displaying perfect meta titles and descriptions which i wrote in Yahoo and Bing Search Engines. Can anyone explain me how to resolve this issue. Website URL: thenewyou (dot) in Regards,
Technical SEO | | SatishSEOSiren0 -
Vanity URLs are being indexed in Google
We are currently using vanity URLs to track offline marketing, the vanity URL is structured as www.clientdomain.com/publication, this URL then is 302 redirected to the actual URL on the website not a custom landing page. The resulting redirected URL looks like: www.clientdomain.com/xyzpage?utm_source=print&utm_medium=print&utm_campaign=printcampaign. We have started to notice that some of the vanity URLs are being indexed in Google search. To prevent this from happening should we be using a 301 redirect instead of a 302 and will the Google index ignore the utm parameters in the URL that is being 301 redirect to? If not, any suggestions on how to handle? Thanks,
Technical SEO | | seogirl221 -
No index on subdomains
Hi, We have a subdomain that is appearing in the search results - I want to hide this as it looks really bad. If I were to add the no index tag to the sub domain would URL would this affect the whole domain or just that sub domain? The main domain is vitally important - it is just that sub domain I need to hide. Many thanks
Technical SEO | | Creditsafe0 -
Why are Google search results different if you are log'd into Google or not?
I get different results when I'm log'd into my Google account associated with my website than if I'm not. The same country is occurring. So how can I rely on the google results I'm seeing? For instance my site is page 1 with the improvements I made based on SEOMOZ if I'm log'd in. Yet I'm not on the first 25 pages if I'm not logged in.
Technical SEO | | Romana0 -
Does Google index XML files?
Does Google or other search engines include XML files in their index? More specifically, I am wondering how Google knows the difference between an xml filetype and an RSS feed.
Technical SEO | | nicole.healthline0