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.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      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
    • 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. Google is indexing wordpress attachment pages

    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 wordpress attachment pages

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    9
    18
    18237
    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.
    • TauriU
      TauriU last edited by

      Hey,

      I have a bit of a problem/issue what is freaking me out a bit. I hope you can help me. If i do site:www.somesitename.com search in Google i see that Google is indexing my attachment pages. I want to redirect attachment URL's to parent post and stop google from indexing them.

      I have used different redirect plugins in hope that i can fix it myself but plugins don't work. I get a error:"too many redirects occurred trying to open www.somesitename.com/?attachment_id=1982 ".

      Do i need to change something in my attachment.php fail? Any idea what is causing this problem?

      get_header(); ?>

      /* Run the loop to output the attachment. * If you want to overload this in a child theme then include a file * called loop-attachment.php and that will be used instead. */ get_template_part( 'loop', 'attachment' ); ?>

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

        This plugin automatically 301 redirects image attachment pages to the parent post, simply install and activate, done:

        http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/attachment-pages-redirect/

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • yeagerd
          yeagerd @Chad.Agrawal last edited by

          Just because you make it yourself and it doesn't install from the control panel.....  doesn't mean it is not a plugin.

          However, it is a very specialized plugin that will do the job without cluttering anything else up.

          Make sure you save a copy out to the side in case you loose it in updates.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Chad.Agrawal
            Chad.Agrawal last edited by

            I found a great solution for this without using a plugin:

            http://www.lancelhoff.com/wordpress-disable-image-attachment-page-links/

            It works for me on my site 🙂

            Chad

            yeagerd 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • RijoAbraham
              RijoAbraham last edited by

              Having same problem, i have so many duplicate pages (more than 350) and all them caused by wordpress attachments. All i can do as keri said link images to direct image url or dont link at all.

              Right now i'm going to remove all hyper-links from images. Easy way.

              No wait  i used this option in yoast plugin and it redirects attachments. I don't know why its not working for "TauriU "

              Tick: Redirect attachment URL's to parent post URL.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • KeriMorgret
                KeriMorgret @JohnTulley last edited by

                I insert the image via the image icon, then I put the link in as the URL of the image itself. There's a button that talks about which to link to, can't remember exactly what it's called, but look for that option in the link page.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • JohnTulley
                  JohnTulley @KeriMorgret last edited by

                  Hi Keri, I'm also having problems dozens of Wordpress attachment pages being indexed in google. When you say you link directly to the image do you mean that  when you add an image you use the add 'from URL' option?

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

                    What I have done on my wordpress site is to make sure I'm linking directly to the image and not to the attachment page. If someone clicks on the image, they get a nice large (2000 pixel wide) image by itself, no attachment page or anything. I don't know if that will work for you, but it does work in my case.

                    JohnTulley 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • TauriU
                      TauriU @TauriU last edited by

                      I wasn't able to figure out how this plugin works exactly:( lack of knowledge, on my part.

                      My site url is   if this is any help. And if you click here http://tinyurl.com/8x55yh8 you see what google site:domainname.com search bring out. All those attachment pages should redirect to parent post URL's.

                      i hope this is at least a bit helpful information

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • ClickConsult
                        ClickConsult @TauriU last edited by

                        OK, do you happen to have Live HTTP Headers for FireFox (or any other tool/plug-in that'd be able to record all http headers) so you can see what exactly is happening with the redirects?

                        If so, could you again paste that over to pastebin.com?

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • TauriU
                          TauriU @TauriU last edited by

                          I tried your suggestion, but it doesn't work unfortunately

                          i m using custom permalink structure. /%postname%

                          is there any possibility that issue lays in " /%postname% " structure.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • TauriU
                            TauriU @mad2k last edited by

                            i have already done lots of optimization in Yoast plugin:) don't want to change plugins now. but i try it out when nothing else doesn't work

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • ClickConsult
                              ClickConsult @TauriU last edited by

                              OK, there's nothing strange with the htaccess.

                              I'd suggest that you now disable all of the plug-ins expect for Yoast's just so you can debug if the issue is due to any other plug-ins installed.

                              I know it sounds strange, but I'd also suggest that you go to the permalinks section of the WordPress admin and update the settings - don't change anything at the moment, just update. Sometimes that can reset any issues with the permalinks.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • TauriU
                                TauriU @TauriU last edited by

                                i posted my site .htaccess file to pastebin.com. ulr http://pastebin.com/cLVNNCkb

                                List of active plug-ins.

                                AdRotate

                                Better Tag Cloud

                                Cleanup Wordpress

                                Contact Form 7

                                Featured Page Widget

                                Flexi Pages Widget

                                Link Carousel

                                MailChimp Widget

                                WordPress Importer

                                WordPress SEO by Yoast's

                                WP-Table Reloaded

                                WP SlimStat

                                WP SlimStat ShortCodes

                                I hope it help:) those freaking attachment pages are messing up my rankings:)

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • mad2k
                                  mad2k last edited by

                                  For more than 2 months I'd been tested another SEO plugin - SEO Ultimate. IMHO it is the best plugin for WP at the time. It is very flexible and it is possible to decide about almost every element of a page. It has follow/nofollow and index/noindex manager and tons of other features.

                                  SEO Ultimate

                                  I don't have attachment pages indexed 🙂

                                  TauriU 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • ClickConsult
                                    ClickConsult @TauriU last edited by

                                    Hmm, that's pretty strange. It sounds like you could have an issue with your htaccess file.

                                    Could you paste your .htaccess file to pastebin.com?

                                    You also said that you've attempted to use a few different plug-ins to achieve this - I'd suggest that you double check that the other plug-ins aren't active. Would you be able to send over a list of the plug-ins that are active too, in addition to the .htaccess file contents?

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • TauriU
                                      TauriU @ClickConsult last edited by

                                      Thank you for a quick answer.

                                      Yoast's SEO plug-in is my main SEO plugin. I have tried option in the plugin that should Redirect attachment URL's to parent post URL's.  Unfortunately it doesn't work.

                                      I get a error: "too many redirects occurred trying to open www.somesitename.com/?attachment_id=1982 ".

                                      ClickConsult TauriU 6 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • ClickConsult
                                        ClickConsult last edited by

                                        Hi there,

                                        This is common with WordPress, attatchments by default have their own pages.

                                        Have you heard of Yoast's SEO plug-in before?

                                        http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/

                                        I'd recommend that you install Yoast's SEO plug-in, it has the ability to redirect attachment pages back to the main page which is what you're trying to achieve.

                                        If you do use Yoast's SEO plug-in, let me know how you get on.

                                        Good luck!

                                        TauriU 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

                                        • shabbirmoosa

                                          Rel canonical tag from shopify page to wordpress site page

                                          shopify wordpress canonical

                                          We have pages on our shopify site example - https://shop.example.com/collections/cast-aluminum-plaques/products/cast-aluminum-address-plaque That we want to put a rel canonical tag on to direct to our wordpress site page - https://www.example.com/aluminum-plaques/ We have links form the wordpress page to the shop page, and over time ahve found that google has ranked the shop pages over the wp pages, which we do not want. So we want to put rel canonical tags on the shop pages to say the wp page is the authority. I hope that makes sense, and I would appreciate your feeback and best solution. Thanks! Is that possible?

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | shabbirmoosa
                                          0
                                        • chelseaskirtinguk

                                          My product category pages are not being indexed on google can someone help?

                                          My website has been indexed on google and all of its pages can be found on google except for the product category pages - which are where we want our traffic heading to, so this is a big problem for us. Our website is www.skirtinguk.com And an example of a page that isn't being indexed is https://www.skirtinguk.com/product-category/mdf-skirting-board/

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chelseaskirtinguk
                                          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
                                        • lunavista-comm

                                          Why is Google ranking irrelevant / not preferred pages for keywords?

                                          Over the past few months we have been chipping away at duplicate content issues. We know this is our biggest issue and is working against us. However, it is due to this client also owning the competitor site. Therefore, product merchandise and top level categories are highly similar, including a shared server. Our rank is suffering major for this, which we understand.  However, as we make changes, and I track and perform test searches, the pages that Google ranks for keywords never seems to match or make sense, at all. For example, I search for "solid scrub tops" and it ranks the "print scrub tops" category. Or the "Men Clearance" page is ranking for  keyword "Women Scrub Pants". Or, I will search for a specific brand, and it ranks a completely different brand. Has anyone else seen this behavior with duplicate content issues?  Or is it an issue with some other penalty?  At this point, our only option is to test something and see what impact it has, but it is difficult to do when keywords do not align with content.

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lunavista-comm
                                          0
                                        • s_EOgi_Bear

                                          Google Rich Snippets in E-commerce Category Pages

                                          Hello Best Practice for rich snippets / structured data in ecommerce category pages? I put structured markup in the category pages and it seems to have negatively impacted SEO.  Webmaster tools is showing about 2.5:1 products to pages ratio. Should I be putting structured data in category Pages at all? Thanks for your time 🙂

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | s_EOgi_Bear
                                          0
                                        • walletapp

                                          My blog is indexing only the archive and category pages

                                          Hi there MOZ community.  I am new to the QandA and have a question. I have a blog Its been live for months - but I can not get the posts to rank in the serps.  Oddly only the categories rank.  The posts are crawled it seems - but seen as less important for a reason I don't understand.  Can anyone here help with this? See here for what i mean. I have had several wp sites rank well in the serps - and the posts do much better. Than the categories or archives - super odd. Thanks to all for help!

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | walletapp
                                          0
                                        • vivekrathore

                                          Google indexing pages from chrome history ?

                                          We have pages that are not linked from site yet they are indexed in Google. It could be possible if Google got these pages from browser. Does Google takes data from chrome?

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vivekrathore
                                          0
                                        • richardo24hr

                                          Best possible linking on site with 100K indexed pages

                                          Hello All, First of all I would like to thank everybody here for sharing such great knowledge with such amazing and heartfelt passion.It really is good to see. Thank you. My story / question: I recently sold a site with more than 100k pages indexed in Google. I was allowed to keep links on the site.These links being actual anchor text links on both the home page as well on the 100k news articles. On top of that, my site syndicates its rss feed (Just links and titles, no content) to this page. However, the new owner made a mess, and now the site could possibly be seen as bad linking to my site. Google tells me within webmasters that this particular site gives me more than 400K backlinks. I have NEVER received one single notice from Google that I have bad links. That first. But, I was worried that this page could have been the reason why MY site tanked as bad as it did. It's the only source linking so massive to me. Just a few days ago, I got in contact with the new site owner. And he has taken my offer to help him 'better' his site. Although getting the site up to date for him is my main purpose, since I am there, I will also put effort in to optimizing the links back to my site. My question: What would be the best to do for my 'most SEO gain' out of this? The site is a news paper type of site, catering for news within the exact niche my site is trying to rank. Difference being, his is a news site, mine is not. It is commercial. Once I fix his site, there will be regular news updates all within the niche we both are in. Regularly as in several times per day. It's news. In the niche. Should I leave my rss feed in the side bars of all the content? Should I leave an achor text link on the sidebar (on all news etc.) If so: there can be just one keyword... 407K pages linking with just 1 kw?? Should I keep it to just one link on the home page? I would love to hear what you guys think. (My domain is from 2001. Like a quality wine. However, still tanked like a submarine.) ALL SEO reports I got here are now Grade A. The site is finally fully optimized. Truly nice to have that confirmation. Now I hope someone will be able to tell me what is best to do, in order to get the most SEO gain out of this for my site. Thank you.

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | richardo24hr
                                          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
                                        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.