• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        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.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • 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
        • My Q&A
        • 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. Technical SEO
        4. Robots.txt & meta noindex--site still shows up on Google Search

        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.

        Robots.txt & meta noindex--site still shows up on Google Search

        Technical SEO
        5
        8
        9977
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • RoxBrock
          RoxBrock last edited by

          I have set up my robots.txt like this:

          User-agent: *
          Disallow: /

          and I have this meta tag in my on a Wordpress site, set up with SEO Yoast

          name="robots" content="noindex,follow"/>

          I did "Fetch as Google" on my Google Search Console

          My website is still showing up in the search results and it says this:

          "A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt"

          This site has not shown up for years and now it is ranking above my site that I want to rank for this keyword. How do I get Google to ignore this site? This seems really weird and I'm confused how a site with little content, that has not been updated for years can rank higher than a site that is constantly updated and improved.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • Vijay-Gaur
            Vijay-Gaur @CleverPhD last edited by

            CleverPhd,

            Really since to see a detailed yet to the point answer.

            Thanks for contributing, and being in the Moz community.

            Regards,

            Vijay

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
            • LoganRay
              LoganRay @CleverPhD last edited by

              Thanks for that clarification CleverPhD, forgot to mention that.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
              • David-Kley
                David-Kley @CleverPhD last edited by

                This one has my vote. You have to allow them access in order to see that you don't want the pages indexed. If you block them from seeing this rule...well they won't be able to see it.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                • CleverPhD
                  CleverPhD @RoxBrock last edited by

                  Just to be clear on what Logan said. You have to allow Google to crawl your site by opening up your robots.txt to Google so it can see your noindex directive that is on each of the pages. Otherwise Google will never "see" the noindex directive on your pages.

                  Likewise, on sitemap.xml.  If you are not allowing Google to crawl the sitemap (because you are blocking it with robots.txt) then Google will not read the sitemap, find all your pages that have the noindex directive on them and then remove those pages from the index.

                  A great article is here

                  https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93710?hl=en&ref_topic=4598466

                  From the mouth of Google "Important! For the noindex meta tag to be effective, the page must not be blocked by a robots.txt file. If the page is blocked by a robots.txt file, the crawler will never see the noindex tag, and the page can still appear in search results, for example if other pages link to it."

                  The other point that logan makes is that Google might list your site if there are enough sites linking to it. The steps above should take care of this, as you are deindexing the page, but here is what I am thinking he is referencing

                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBdEwpRQRD0

                  Google will include a site that is blocked in robots.txt if enough pages link to it, even if they have not crawled the url.

                  You can go into Search Console and find all the links that they say are pointing to your site. You can also use tools like CognitiveSEO or Ahrefs, Majestic or Moz etc and gather up all of those sites to find links to your site and include those in a disavow file that you put into Search Console and tell Google to ignore all of those links to your site.

                  Secret bonus method.  Putting a noindex directive in your robots

                  https://www.deepcrawl.com/knowledge/best-practice/robots-txt-noindex-the-best-kept-secret-in-seo/

                  This allows you to manage your noindex directives in your robots.txt.  Makes it easier as you can control all your noindex directives from a central location and block whole folders at a time.  This would stop Google from crawling AND indexing pages all in one page and you can just leave the rest of the site alone and not worry about if a noindex tag should or should not be on a certain page.

                  Good luck!

                  David-Kley LoganRay Vijay-Gaur 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 4
                  • Vijay-Gaur
                    Vijay-Gaur @RoxBrock last edited by

                    As mentioned by Logan,noindex meta tag

                    is the most effective way to remove indexed pages. It sometimes takes time, you have to submit the right sitemap.xml which cover the pages/post you wish to get removed from google index.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                    • RoxBrock
                      RoxBrock last edited by

                      I did read that about the robots.txt and that is why I added the noindex.

                      I use SEO Yoast for sitemap.xml, so shouldn't all my pages be there? I believe they are because I just looked at it a couple days ago.

                      So are you saying I should look through my backlink profile (WMT) and try to remove any backlinks?

                      Would 'Fetch as Google' not ping Google to tell them to recrawl?

                      Thanks for your help.

                      Vijay-Gaur CleverPhD 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • LoganRay
                        LoganRay last edited by

                        Hi,

                        First things first, it's a common misconception that the robots.txt disallow: / will prevent indexing. It's only indented to prevent crawling, which is why you don't get a meta description pulled into the result snippet. If you have links pointing to that page and a disallow: / on your robots, it's still eligible for indexation.

                        Second, it's pretty weird that the noindex tag isn't effective, as that's the only sure-fire way to get de-indexed intentionally. I would recommend creating an XML sitemap for all URLs on that domain that are noindex'd and resubmit that in Search Console. If Google hasn't crawled your site since adding the noindex, they don't know it's there. In my experience, forcing them to recrawl via XML submission has been effective at getting noindex noticed quicker.

                        I would also recommend taking a look at the link profile and removing any possible links pointing to your noindex pages, this will help future attempts at indexing.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 4
                        • 1 / 1
                        • First post
                          Last post

                        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

                        • QuantumWeb62

                          Removing site subdomains from Google search

                          Hi everyone, I hope you are having a good week? My website has several subdomains that I had shut down some time back and pages on these subdomains are still appearing in the Google search result pages. I want all the URLs from these subdomains to stop appearing in the Google search result pages and I was hoping to see if anyone can help me with this. The subdomains are no longer under my control as I don't have web hosting for these sites (so these subdomain sites just show a default hosting server page). Because of this, I cannot verify these in search console and submit a url/site removal request to Google. In total, there are about 70 pages from these subdomains showing up in Google at the moment and I'm concerned in case these pages have any negative impacts on my SEO. Thanks for taking the time to read my post.

                          Technical SEO | | QuantumWeb62
                          0
                        • rijwielcashencarry040

                          Good robots txt for magento

                          Dear Communtiy, I am trying to improve the SEO ratings for my website www.rijwielcashencarry.nl (magento). My next step will be implementing robots txt to exclude some crawling pages.
                          Does anybody have a good magento robots txt for me? And what need i copy exactly? Thanks everybody! Greetings, Bob

                          Technical SEO | | rijwielcashencarry040
                          0
                        • Whittie

                          Robots.txt on subdomains

                          Hi guys! I keep reading conflicting information on this and it's left me a little unsure. Am I right in thinking that a website with a subdomain of shop.sitetitle.com will share the same robots.txt file as the root domain?

                          Technical SEO | | Whittie
                          0
                        • danwebman

                          Guys & Gals anyone know if urllist.txt is still used?

                          I'm using a tool which generates urllist.txt and looking on the SEO Forums it seems that Yahoo used to use this. What I'd like to know is is it still used anywhere and should we have it on the site?

                          Technical SEO | | danwebman
                          0
                        • NicDale

                          Is there any value in having a blank robots.txt file?

                          I've read an audit where the writer recommended creating and uploading a blank robots.txt file, there was no current file in place.  Is there any merit in having a blank robots.txt file? What is the minimum you would include in a basic robots.txt file?

                          Technical SEO | | NicDale
                          0
                        • GregDixson

                          Google Showing Multiple Listings For Same Site?

                          I've been optimizing a small static HTML site and have been working to increase the keyword rankings, yet have always ranked #1 for the company name. But, I've now noticed the company name is taking more than just the first position - the site is now appearing in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd position (each position referencing a different page of the site). Great.. who doesn't want to dominate a page of Google! ..But it looks kind of untidy and not usually how links from the same site are displayed. Is this normal? I'm used to seeing results from the same site grouped under the primary result, but not like this. any info appreciated 🙂

                          Technical SEO | | GregDixson
                          0
                        • Websensejim

                          Why has Google removed meta descriptions from SERPS?

                          One of my clients' sites has just been redesigned with lots of new URLs added. So the 301 redirections have been put in place and most of the new URLs have now been indexed. BUT Google is still showing all the old URLs in the SERPS and even worse it only displays the title tag. The meta description is not shown, no rich snippet, no text, nothing below the title. This is proving disastrous as visitors are not clicking on a result with no description. I have to assume its got something to do with the redirection, but why is it not showing the descriptions? I've checked the old URLs and he meta description is definitely still in the code, but Google is choosing not to show it. I've never seen this before so I'm struggling for an answer. I'd like to know why or how this is happening, and if it can be resolved. I realise that this may be resolved when Google stops showing all the old URLs but there's no telling how long that will take (can it be speeded up?)

                          Technical SEO | | Websensejim
                          0
                        • JordanJudson

                          Should I set up a disallow in the robots.txt for catalog search results?

                          When the crawl diagnostics came back for my site its showing around 3,000 pages of duplicate content. Almost all of them are of the catalog search results page. I also did a site search on Google and they have most of the results pages in their index too. I think I should just disallow the bots in the /catalogsearch/ sub folder, but I'm not sure if this will have any negative effect?

                          Technical SEO | | JordanJudson
                          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.