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. How do you de-index and prevent indexation of a whole domain?

    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.

    How do you de-index and prevent indexation of a whole domain?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    3
    3
    1126
    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.
    • Martin_S
      Martin_S last edited by

      I have parts of an online portal displaying in SERPs which it definitely shouldn't be. It's due to thoughtless developers but I need to have the whole portal's domain de-indexed and prevented from future indexing.

      I'm not too tech savvy but how is this achieved? No index? Robots?

      thanks

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

        Fastest way to do it would be through a combination of Google Webmaster Tools and Robots.txt / noindex,nofollow meta tags.

        Firstly if your domain hasn't been verified within GWT, go through that process. Then proceed with the remove URL request within GWT. (Image Attached)

        You will need to upload a robots.txt and/or implement the noindex meta tag within the header of the pages you no longer want indexed.

        Example Robots.txt:

        User-agent: *
        Disallow: /offendingportal/

        Example Robots Meta tag:

        That should be enough to get rid of the offending content from within the SERPS and prevent it from being re-indexed.

        removeurl.png

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • Martijn_Scheijbeler
          Martijn_Scheijbeler last edited by

          Hi TCE,

          There are two options in my opinion for this which are the best (as their are several other options including META robots etc):

          1. Robots.txt: Exclude your portal via your robots.txt file.
          2. HTTP Auth: Let your developers add HTTP Authentication so you have to log in to see the portal. Google won't be able to see the pages itself and so will de index them.

          Hope this helps.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • 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

          • Saba.Elahi.M.

            When creating a sub-domain, does that sub-domain automatically start with the DA of the main domain?

            We have a website with a high DA and we are considering sub-folder or sub-domain. One of the great benefits of a sub-folder is that we know we get to keep the high DA, is this also the case for sub-domains? Also if you could provide any sources of information that specify this, I can't see to find anything!

            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Saba.Elahi.M.
            0
          • JCN-SBWD

            Should I disable the indexing of tags in Wordpress?

            Hi, I have a client that is publishing 7 or 8 news articles and posts each month. I am optimising selected posts and I have found that they have been adding a lot of tags (almost like using hashtags) . There are currently 29 posts but already 55 tags, each of which has its own archive page, and all of which are added to the site map to be indexed (https://sykeshome.europe.sykes.com/sitemap_index.xml). I came across an article (https://crunchify.com/better-dont-use-wordpress-tags/) that suggested that tags add no value to SEO ranking, and as a consequence Wordpress tags should not be indexed or included in the sitemap. I haven't been able to find much more reliable information on this topic, so my question is - should I get rid of the tags from this website and make the focus pages, posts and categories (redirecting existing tag pages back to the site home page)? It is a relatively new websites and I am conscious of the fact that category and tag archive pages already substantially outnumber actual content pages (posts and news) - I guess this isn't optimal. I'd appreciate any advice. Thanks wMfojBf

            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JCN-SBWD
            0
          • Bee159

            :Pointing hreflang to a different domain

            Hi all, Let's say I have two websites: www.mywebsite.com and www.mywebsite.de - they share a lot of content but the main categories and URLs are almost always different. Am I right in saying I can't just set the hreflang tag on every page of www.mywebsite.com to read: rel='alternate' hreflang='de' href='http://mywebsite.de' /> That just won't do anything, right? Am I also right in saying that the only way to use hreflang properly across two domains is to have a customer hreflang tag on every page that has identical content translated into German? So for this page: www.mywebsite.com/page.html my hreflang tag for the german users would be: <link < span="">rel='alternate' hreflang='de' href='http://mywebsite.de/page.html' /></link <> Thanks for your time.

            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bee159
            0
          • iam-sold

            How can I prevent duplicate pages being indexed because of load balancer (hosting)?

            The site that I am optimising has a problem with duplicate pages being indexed as a result of the load balancer (which is required and set up by the hosting company). The load balancer passes the site through to 2 different URLs: www.domain.com www2.domain.com Some how, Google have indexed 2 of the same URLs (which I was obviously hoping they wouldn't) - the first on www and the second on www2. The hosting is a mirror image of each other (www and www2), meaning I can't upload a robots.txt to the root of www2.domain.com disallowing all. Also, I can't add a canonical script into the website header of www2.domain.com pointing the individual URLs through to www.domain.com etc. Any suggestions as to how I can resolve this issue would be greatly appreciated!

            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iam-sold
            0
          • imran2078

            Should I redirect my Google Update Effected Domain to brand new Domain?

            Hey Moz experts, I had a domain which was really doing better but after the Humming Bird update my traffic was decreased up to 90%. There are plenty of posts on my existing blog, Now what should I do? I mean should I redirect it to a brand new domain or Copy all the posts to a brand new domain and delete my existing domain? Note that the Old domain has PR1, DA 19 and PA 30.

            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | imran2078
            0
          • WMCA

            XML Sitemap on another domain

            Hi, We've rebuilt our website and created a better sitemap index structure. There's a good chance that we not be able to append the XML files to existing site for technical reasons (don't get me started). I'm reaching out because I'm wondering if can we place the XML files on another website or subdomain? I know this is not best practice and probably very grey but I'm looking for alternatives. If there answer is DON'T DO IT let me know too. Thx

            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WMCA
            0
          • jasonwdexter

            Redirect ruined domain to new domain without passing link juice

            A new client has a domain which has been hammered by bad links, updates etc and it's basically on its arse because of previous SEO guys. They have various domains for their business (brand.com, brand.co.uk) and want to use a fresh domain and take it from there. Their current domain is brand.com (the ruined one). They're not bothered about the rankings for brand.com but they want to redirect brand.com to brand.co.uk so that previous clients can find them easily. Would a 302 redirect work for this? I don't want to set up a 301 redirect as I don't want any of the crappy links pointing across. Thanks!

            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jasonwdexter
            0
          • Leverage_Marketing

            Reducing Booking Engine Indexation

            Hi Mozzers, I am working on a site with a very useful room booking engine.  Helpful as it may be, all the variations (2 bedrooms, 3 bedrooms, room with a view, etc, etc,) are indexed by Google.  Section 13 on Search Pagination in Dr. Pete's great post on Panda http://www.seomoz.org/blog/duplicate-content-in-a-post-panda-world speaks to our issue, but I was wondering since 2 (!) years have gone by, if there are any additional solutions y'all might recommend.  We want to cut down on the duplicate titles and content and get the useful but not useful for SERPs online booking pages out of the index.  Any thoughts? Thanks for your help.

            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Leverage_Marketing
            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.