undefined
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
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • 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
    • 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.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • 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
18.2k
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 Feb 9, 2012, 1:36 PM

    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 May 14, 2013, 1:32 PM May 14, 2013, 1:32 PM

      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 May 5, 2013, 10:13 AM May 5, 2013, 10:13 AM

        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 Jan 14, 2013, 1:24 PM Jan 14, 2013, 1:24 PM

          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 May 5, 2013, 10:13 AM Reply Quote 0
          • RijoAbraham
            RijoAbraham last edited by Sep 16, 2012, 4:25 AM Sep 16, 2012, 3:45 AM

            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 Aug 7, 2012, 1:45 PM Aug 7, 2012, 1:45 PM

              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 Aug 7, 2012, 7:45 AM Aug 7, 2012, 7:45 AM

                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 Aug 7, 2012, 1:45 PM Reply Quote 0
                • KeriMorgret
                  KeriMorgret last edited by Feb 9, 2012, 3:21 PM Feb 9, 2012, 3:21 PM

                  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 Aug 7, 2012, 7:45 AM Reply Quote 0
                  • TauriU
                    TauriU @TauriU last edited by Feb 16, 2012, 2:34 PM Feb 9, 2012, 3:17 PM

                    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 Feb 9, 2012, 2:49 PM Feb 9, 2012, 2:49 PM

                      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 Feb 9, 2012, 2:44 PM Feb 9, 2012, 2:44 PM

                        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 Feb 9, 2012, 2:31 PM Feb 9, 2012, 2:31 PM

                          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 Feb 9, 2012, 2:29 PM Feb 9, 2012, 2:29 PM

                            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 Feb 9, 2012, 2:25 PM Feb 9, 2012, 2:24 PM

                              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 Feb 9, 2012, 2:09 PM Feb 9, 2012, 2:09 PM

                                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 Feb 9, 2012, 2:31 PM Reply Quote 0
                                • ClickConsult
                                  ClickConsult @TauriU last edited by Feb 9, 2012, 1:59 PM Feb 9, 2012, 1:59 PM

                                  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 Feb 9, 2012, 1:55 PM Feb 9, 2012, 1:55 PM

                                    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 Feb 9, 2012, 3:17 PM Reply Quote 0
                                    • ClickConsult
                                      ClickConsult last edited by Feb 9, 2012, 1:42 PM Feb 9, 2012, 1:42 PM

                                      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 Feb 9, 2012, 1:55 PM Reply Quote 0
                                      • 1 / 1
                                      1 out of 18
                                      • First post
                                        1/18
                                        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

                                      • LindsayE

                                        Can you index a Google doc?

                                        We have updated and added completely new content to our state pages. Our old state content is sitting in a our Google drive. Can I make these public to get them indexed and provide a link back to our state pages? In theory it sounds like a great link building strategy... TIA!

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Apr 18, 2018, 8:56 AM | LindsayE
                                        1
                                      • Jason.Capshaw

                                        Is Google able to see child pages in our AJAX pagination?

                                        We upgraded our site to a new platform the first week of August.  The product listing pages have a canonical issue.  Page 2 of the paginated series has a canonical pointing to page 1 of the series.  Google lists this as a "mistake" and we're planning on implementing best practice (https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2013/04/5-common-mistakes-with-relcanonical.html)  We want to implement rel=next,prev. The URLs are constructed using a hashtag and a string of query parameters.  You'll notice that these parameters are  &parameter:value vs &parameter=value. /products#facet:&productBeginIndex:0&orderBy:&pageView:grid&minPrice:&maxPrice:&pageSize:& None of the URLs are included in any indexed URLs because the canonical is the page URL without the AJAX parameters.  So these results are expected. Screamingfrog only finds the product links on page 1 and doesn't move to page 2.  The link to page 2 is AJAX.  ScreamingFrog only crawls AJAX if its in Google's deprecated recommendations as far as I know. The "facet" parameter is noted in search console, but the example URLs are for an unrelated URL that uses the "?facet=" format.  None of the other parameters have been added by Google to the console.  Other unrelated parameters from the new site are in the console. When using the fetch as Google tool, Google ignores everything after the "#" and shows only the main URL.  I tested to see if it was just pulling the canonical of the page for the test, but that was not the case. None of the "#facet" strings appear in the Moz crawl I don't think Google is reading the "productBeginIndex" to specify the start of a page 2 and so on.  One thought is to add the parameter in search console, remove the canonical, and test one category to see how Google treats the pages. Making the URLs SEO friendly (/page2.../page3) is a heavy lift. Any ideas how to diagnose/solve this issue?

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Oct 13, 2016, 5:06 PM | Jason.Capshaw
                                        0
                                      • MichaelWhyley

                                        Newly designed page ranks in Google but then disappears - at a loss as to why.

                                        Hi all, I wondered if you could help me at all please? We run a site called getinspired365.com (which is not optimised) and in the last 2 weeks have tried to optimise some new pages that we have added. For example, we have optimised this page - http://getinspired365.com/lifes-a-bit-like-mountaineering-never-look-down This page was added to Google's index via webmaster tools. When I then did a search for the full quote it came back 2nd in Google's search. If I did a search for half the quote (Life is a bit like mountaineering) it also ranked 2nd. We had another quote page that we'd optimised that displayed similar behaviour (it ranked 4th). But then for some reason when I now do the search it doesn't rank in the top 100 results. This, despite, an unoptimised "normal" page ranking 4th for a search such as: Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered. So our domain doesn't seem to be penalised as our "normal" pages are ranking. These pages aren't particularly well designed from an SEO standpoint. But our new pages - which are optimised - keep disappearing from Google, despite the fact they still show as indexed. I've rendered the pages and everything appears fine within Google Webmaster Tools. At a bit of a loss as to why they'd drop so significantly? A few pages I could understand but they've all but been removed. Any one seen this before, and any ideas what could be causing the issue? We have a different URL structure for our new pages in that we have the quote appear in the URL. All the content (bar the quote) that you see in the new pages are unique content that we've written ourselves. Could it be that we've over optimised and Google view these pages as spam? Many thanks in advance for all your help.

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 5, 2016, 1:22 PM | MichaelWhyley
                                        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 | Dec 1, 2015, 7:53 PM | lunavista-comm
                                        0
                                      • Online-Marketing-Guy

                                        Substantial difference between Number of Indexed Pages and Sitemap Pages

                                        Hey there, I am doing a website audit at the moment. I've notices substantial differences in the number of pages indexed (search console), the number of pages in the sitemap and the number I am getting when I crawl the page with screamingfrog (see below). Would those discrepancies concern you? The website and its rankings seems fine otherwise. Total indexed: 2,360 (Search Consule)
                                        About 2,920 results (Google search "site:example.com")
                                        Sitemap: 1,229 URLs
                                        Screemingfrog Spider: 1,352 URLs Cheers,
                                        Jochen

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Nov 5, 2015, 6:10 PM | Online-Marketing-Guy
                                        0
                                      • bondhoward

                                        Google indexed wrong pages of my website.

                                        When I google site:www.ayurjeewan.com, after 8 pages, google shows Slider and shop pages. Which I don't want to be indexed. How can I get rid of these pages?

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 26, 2015, 9:48 PM | bondhoward
                                        0
                                      • fabioricotta-84038

                                        How long takes to a page show up in Google results after removing noindex from a page?

                                        Hi folks, A client of mine created a new page and used meta robots noindex to not show the page while they are not ready to launch it. The problem is that somehow Google "crawled" the page and now, after removing the meta robots noindex, the page does not show up in the results. We've tried to crawl it using Fetch as Googlebot, and then submit it using the button that appears. We've included the page in sitemap.xml and also used the old Google submit new page URL https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url Does anyone know how long will it take for Google to show the page AFTER removing meta robots noindex from the page? Any reliable references of the statement? I did not find any Google video/post  about this. I know that in some days it will appear but I'd like to have a good reference for the future. Thanks.

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 9, 2014, 8:06 PM | fabioricotta-84038
                                        0
                                      • bjs2010

                                        Why does Google add my domain as a suffix to page title in SERPS?

                                        Hi, If I do a search in Google - for one our products on our site, our site comes up - but it would appear that google is adding our domain name as a suffix to our title in the results... Anyone else seen this? Can I do anything about it? I would prefer it not to appear. Thanks!

                                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jun 21, 2013, 12:39 PM | bjs2010
                                        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.