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.
Stop google indexing CDN pages
-
Just when I thought I'd seen it all, google hits me with another nasty surprise!
I have a CDN to deliver images, js and css to visitors around the world. I have no links to static HTML pages on the site, as far as I can tell, but someone else may have - perhaps a scraper site?
Google has decided the static pages they were able to access through the CDN have more value than my real pages, and they seem to be slowly replacing my pages in the index with the static pages.
Anyone got an idea on how to stop that?
Obviously, I have no access to the static area, because it is in the CDN, so there is no way I know of that I can have a robots file there.
It could be that I have to trash the CDN and change it to only allow the image directory, and maybe set up a separate CDN subdomain for content that only contains the JS and CSS?
Have you seen this problem and beat it?
(Of course the next thing is Roger might look at google results and start crawling them too, LOL)
P.S. The reason I am not asking this question in the google forums is that others have asked this question many times and nobody at google has bothered to answer, over the past 5 months, and nobody who did try, gave an answer that was remotely useful. So I'm not really hopeful of anyone here having a solution either, but I expect this is my best bet because you guys are always willing to try.
-
Thank you Edward.
I don't have quite that problem, but I think you are right too.
My CDN is set up to be Origin Pull.
That means there is no need to FTP - the system just fetches content as requested.
- you should check that out if you have to ftp everything.
But what you said that helped me is this - that I should have had one CNAME for images and anotehr CNAME for content and the content should be limited to a folder called content, so I can put the CSS files and the JS files in it and that way, the plain HTML pages at teh root level will never be affected.
I also realized, while checking the system, that I wasn't using a canonical tag in the intermediate pages, as I was in the story pages. So I just added code to add canonical tags for all the intermediate pages and the front page.
I do have a few other types of pages, so I will handle the code for them next.
I think adding the canonical tag might fix the problem, but I will also work on reconfiguring the CDN and change over when the action is not too busy, in case it takes a while to propagate.
-
It sounds like you have set up your CDN slightly wrong.
After setting up a few like you have I realised that I was actually making a complete duplicate of the site rather than just the images or assets
I imagine you have your origin directory for the CDN in the public html folder.
Create a subdomain, set that as the origin.
Eg.. I'm working on this site at the moment: http://looksfishy.co.uk/
I have a subdomain called assets: http://assets.looksfishy.co.uk/
The cdn content: http://cdn.looksfishy.co.uk/
Files uploaded here:
http://assets.looksfishy.co.uk/species/holder/pike.jpg
Displayed here:
http://cdn.looksfishy.co.uk/species/holder/pike.jpg
Check the ip address on them.
It does make uploading images by ftp a bit of a faff, but does make your site better
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
How long does google takes to crawl a single site ?
lately i have been thinking , when a crawler visits an already visited site or indexed site, whats the duration of its scanning?
Algorithm Updates | | Sam09schulz0 -
Site appearing and disappearing from google serps.
Hi, My website is normally on page 2-3 on google consistently. Over the past month it has been appearing and then completely disappearing from the serps. One day it will be on page 2, then the next day completely missing from the serps. When i check the index it seems to be indexed correctly when doing site:mysite.com. I don't understand why this keeps happening, any experience with this issue? It doesn't seem to be a google dance as far as I can tell. When my other sites dance they typically just go up or down a few ranks for a couple weeks until they stabilize. Not completely fall off the search engine.
Algorithm Updates | | Chris_www0 -
How often should I update the content on my pages?
I have started dropping on my rankings - due to lack of time after having a baby. I'm still managing to blog but I'm wondering if I update the content on my pages will that help? All my Meta tags and page descriptions were updated over a year ago - do I need to update these too? We were ranking in the top spots for a good few years, but we're slowly falling 😞 Please give me any advice to keep us from falling even further. I have claimed all my listings, and try to add new links once a month. I share my blog to all social sites and work hard to get Google reviews, we have 53 which is higher than any of our competitors. Any other ideas? Have I missed something that Google is looking for nowadays? Many thanks 🙂
Algorithm Updates | | Lauren16890 -
Where can I find a breakdown of google search volume by specific industry/vertical? For example, what % of people searching in google are looking for housing? Cars? Restaurants?
I"m looking for specific breakdowns of search volume in google by: #1 Vertical (Shopping/restaurants/Services etc). For example, how many people are searching in google for information pertaining to restaurants per month? Search volume for all of 2012, 2013, 2014? #2 More granular categories within verticals, people searching for: books,apartment rentals,cellphones) Is there a breakdown of google search somewhere online that gives this type of information? Thank you MOZ community, really appreciate it!
Algorithm Updates | | AppleSauceRules0 -
Should my canonical tags point to the category page or the filter result page?
Hi Moz, I'm working on an ecommerce site with categories, filter options, and sort options – teacherexpress.scholastic.com. Should I have canonical tags from all filter and sort options point to the category page like gap.com and llbean.com? or have all sort options point to the filtered page URL like kohls.com? I was under the impression that to use a canonical tag, the pages have to have the same content, meaning that Gap and L.L. Bean would be using canonical tags incorrectly. Using a filter changes the content, whereas using a sort option just changes the order. What would be the best way to deal with duplicate content for this site? Thanks for reading!
Algorithm Updates | | DA20130 -
Why has my homepage been replaced in Google by my Facebook page?
Hi. I was wondering if others have had this happen to them. Lately, I've noticed that on a couple of my sites the homepage no longer appears in the Google SERP. Instead, a Facebook page I've created appears in the position the homepage used to get. My subpages still get listed in Google--just not the homepage. Obviously, I'd prefer that both the homepage and Facebook page appear. Any thoughts on what's going on? Thanks for your help!
Algorithm Updates | | TuxedoCat0 -
Home page replaced by subpage in google SERP (good or bad)
SInce Panda, We have seen our home page drop from #2 in google.ie serp to page 3 but it has been replaced in the same position @#2 by our relevent sub page for the keyword that we ranked#2 for. Is this a good or bad thing from and seo point of view and is it better to have deep pages show in serp rather than the homepage of a site and what is the best line of action from here in relation to seo. Is it best to work on subpage or home page for that keyword and should link building for that phrase be directed towards the subpage or the homepage as the subpage is obviously more relevent in googles eyes for the search term. It is clear that all areas of the site should be looked at in relation to link building and deep links etc but now that google is obviously looking at relevancy very closely should all campaigns be sectioned into relevent content managed sections and the site likewise and treated on an individual basis. Any help that you may have would be very welcome. Paul
Algorithm Updates | | mcintyr0 -
Why google index ip address instead of the domain name？
I have a website ,now google index ip address of it instead of the domain name,I have used 301 redirected to the domain name,but how to change the index IP to its domain name? And why google index the IP address?
Algorithm Updates | | frankfans1170