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.

      What is your Brand Authority?
      Moz

      What is your Brand Authority?

      Check yours now
    • 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.

      • SEO Q&A

        Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

      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
    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

                                        • 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 | | LindsayE
                                          1
                                        • m_van

                                          React.js Single Page Application Not Indexing

                                          We recently launched our website that uses React.js and we haven't been able to get any of the pages indexed. Our previous site (which had a .ca domain) ranked #1 in the 4 cities we had pages and we redirected it to the .com domain a little over a month ago. We have recently started using prerender.io but still haven't seen any success. Has anyone dealt with a similar issue before?

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | m_van
                                          0
                                        • Tylerj

                                          Should I use noindex or robots to remove pages from the Google index?

                                          I have a Magento site and just realized we have about 800 review pages indexed. The /review directory is disallowed in robots.txt but the pages are still indexed. From my understanding robots means it will not crawl the pages BUT if the pages are still indexed if they are linked from somewhere else. I can add the noindex tag to the review pages but they wont be crawled. https://www.seroundtable.com/google-do-not-use-noindex-in-robots-txt-20873.html Should I remove the robots.txt and add the noindex? Or just add the noindex to what I already have?

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tylerj
                                          0
                                        • Blink-SEO

                                          Do internal links from non-indexed pages matter?

                                          Hi everybody! Here's my question. After a site migration, a client has seen a big drop in rankings. We're trying to narrow down the issue. It seems that they have lost around 15,000 links following the switch, but these came from pages that were blocked in the robots.txt file. I was wondering if there was any research that has been done on the impact of internal links from no-indexed pages. Would be great to hear your thoughts! Sam

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Blink-SEO
                                          0
                                        • danatanseo

                                          How is Google crawling and indexing this directory listing?

                                          We have three Directory Listing pages that are being indexed by Google: http://www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/jsp/ http://www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/jsp/html/ http://www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/jsp/pdf/ How and why is Googlebot crawling and indexing these pages? Nothing else links to them (although the /jsp.html/ and /jsp/pdf/ both link back to /jsp/). They aren't disallowed in our robots.txt file and I understand that this could be why. If we add them to our robots.txt file and disallow, will this prevent Googlebot from crawling and indexing those Directory Listing pages without prohibiting them from crawling and indexing the content that resides there which is used to populate pages on our site? Having these pages indexed in Google is causing a myriad of issues, not the least of which is duplicate content. For example, this file <tt>CCI-SALES-STAFF.HTML</tt> (which appears on this Directory Listing referenced above - http://www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/jsp/html/) clicks through to this Web page: http://www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/jsp/html/CCI-SALES-STAFF.HTML This page is indexed in Google and we don't want it to be. But so is the actual page where we intended the content contained in that file to display: http://www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/category/meet-our-sales-staff As you can see, this results in duplicate content problems. Is there a way to disallow Googlebot from crawling that Directory Listing page, and, provided that we have this URL in our sitemap: http://www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/category/meet-our-sales-staff, solve the duplicate content issue as a result? For example: Disallow: /StoreFront/jsp/ Disallow: /StoreFront/jsp/html/ Disallow: /StoreFront/jsp/pdf/ Can we do this without risking blocking Googlebot from content we do want crawled and indexed? Many thanks in advance for any and all help on this one!

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | danatanseo
                                          0
                                        • fablau

                                          Google Analytics: how to filter out pages with low bounce rate?

                                          Hello here, I am trying to find out how I can filter out pages in Google Analytics according to their bounce rate. The way I am doing now is the following: 1. I am working inside the Content > Site Content > Landing Pages report 2. Once there, I click the "advanced" link on the right of the filter field. 3. Once there, I define to "include" "Bounce Rate" "Greater than" "0.50" which should show me which pages have a bounce rate higher of 0.50%.... instead I get the following warning on the graph: "Search constraints on metrics can not be applied to this graph" I am afraid I am using the wrong approach... any ideas are very welcome! Thank you in advance.

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau
                                          0
                                        • alextanner

                                          Duplicate page titles Wordpress SEO/Yoast

                                          Hi I have a Wordpress site using the Wordpress SEO plugin by Yoast. Everything appears to be fine except that on 1 Feb SEOMoz crawl suddenly picked up a bunch of errors. The errors are duplicate page titles, and these exist only for the mysite.com/page/X pages. I can't find any setting in Yoast that looks wrong or tells me how to fix this. The pages are also dynamically canonicalizing to themselves - not sure if this makes any difference although I don't know how this is happening. Does anyone know how to fix this duplicate title error? Alex

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alextanner
                                          0
                                        • JSOC

                                          Should I Allow Blog Tag Pages to be Indexed?

                                          I have a wordpress blog with settings currently set so that Google does not index tag pages. Is this a best practice that avoids duplicate content or am I hurting the site by taking eligible pages out of the index?

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JSOC
                                          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
                                        • 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.