Robots.txt & meta noindex--site still shows up on Google Search
-
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.
-
CleverPhd,
Really since to see a detailed yet to the point answer.
Thanks for contributing, and being in the Moz community.
Regards,
Vijay
-
Thanks for that clarification CleverPhD, forgot to mention that.
-
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.
-
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!
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
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
-
Old site name showing in SERPs
Hi all, We've recently re-launched one of our sites with a substantial redesign, refreshed content, meta data, descriptions and functionality. We noticed in SERPs that some of the page titles are showing the old name for the site, which hasn't been used for a few years and the site's been through a few updates and a URL change since then. All the meta titles showing up as they should in crawls through Search Console and Moz and it's my understanding that if Google were pulling a cached version of a title it would have gone for a more recently cached one? Any thoughts on why Google's turned back the clock on our site's name would be greatly appreciated! -Jamie
Technical SEO | | JamieCMF0 -
Page disappeared from Google index. Google cache shows page is being redirected.
My URL is: http://shop.nordstrom.com/c/converse Hi. The week before last, my top Converse page went missing from the Google index. When I "fetch as Googlebot" I am able to get the page and "submit" it to the index. I have done this several times and still cannot get the page to show up. When I look at the Google cache of the page, it comes up with a different page. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://shop.nordstrom.com/c/converse shows: http://shop.nordstrom.com/c/pop-in-olivia-kim Back story: As far as I know we have never redirected the Converse page to the Pop-In page. However the reverse may be true. We ran a Converse based Pop-In campaign but that used the Converse page and not the regular Pop-In page. Though the page comes back with a 200 status, it looks like Google thinks the page is being redirected. We were ranking #4 for "converse" - monthly searches = 550,000. My SEO traffic for the page has tanked since it has gone missing. Any help would be much appreciated. Stephan
Technical SEO | | shop.nordstrom0 -
Robots.txt and Multiple Sitemaps
Hello, I have a hopefully simple question but I wanted to ask to get a "second opinion" on what to do in this situation. I am working on a clients robots.txt and we have multiple sitemaps. Using yoast I have my sitemap_index.xml and I also have a sitemap-image.xml I do put them in google and bing by hand but wanted to have it added into the robots.txt for insurance. So my question is, when having multiple sitemaps called out on a robots.txt file does it matter if one is before the other? From my reading it looks like you can have multiple sitemaps called out, but I wasn't sure the best practice when writing it up in the file. Example: User-agent: * Disallow: Disallow: /cgi-bin/ Disallow: /wp-admin/ Disallow: /wp-content/plugins/ Sitemap: http://sitename.com/sitemap_index.xml Sitemap: http://sitename.com/sitemap-image.xml Thanks a ton for the feedback, I really appreciate it! :) J
Technical SEO | | allstatetransmission0 -
Will an XML sitemap override a robots.txt
I have a client that has a robots.txt file that is blocking an entire subdomain, entirely by accident. Their original solution, not realizing the robots.txt error, was to submit an xml sitemap to get their pages indexed. I did not think this tactic would work, as the robots.txt would take precedent over the xmls sitemap. But it worked... I have no explanation as to how or why. Does anyone have an answer to this? or any experience with a website that has had a clear Disallow: / for months , that somehow has pages in the index?
Technical SEO | | KCBackofen0 -
Noindex search result pages Add Classifieds site
Dear All, Is it a good idea to noindex the search result pages of a classified site?
Technical SEO | | te_c
Taking into account that category pages are also search result pages, I would say it is not a good idea, but the whole information is in the sitemap, google can index individual listings (which are index, follow) anyway. What would you do? What kind of effects has in the indexing of the site, marking the search result pages as "search results" with schema.org microdata? Many thanks for your help, Best Regards, Daniel0 -
Blocked by meta-robots but there is no robots file
OK, I'm a little frustred here. I've waited a week for the next weekly index to take place after changing the privacy setting in a wordpress website so Google can index, but I still got the same problem. Blocked by meta-robots, no index, no follow. But I do not see a robot file anywhere and the privacy setting in this Wordpress site is set to allow search engines to index this site. Website is www.marketalert.ca What am I missing here? Why can't I index the rest of the website and is there a faster way to test this rather than wait another week just to find out it didn't work again?
Technical SEO | | Twinbytes0 -
Removing robots.txt on WordPress site problem
Hi..am a little confused since I ticked the box in WordPress to allow search engines to now crawl my site (previously asked for them not to) but Google webmaster tools is telling me I still have robots.txt blocking them so am unable to submit the sitemap. Checked source code and the robots instruction has gone so a little lost. Any ideas please?
Technical SEO | | Wallander0 -
Google SERPs and NoIndex directives.
We have pages that have been added to robots.txt as url patterns in DisAllow. Also, we have the meta noindex tags on the pages themselves. But we are finding the pages in index. I don't think they are higher up in the rankings and they don't have any descriptions, any previews or any cached pages. Why does Google show these pages? Could it be due to internal or external linking?
Technical SEO | | gaganc0