Google indexing despite robots.txt block
-
Hi
This subdomain has about 4'000 URLs indexed in Google, although it's blocked via robots.txt: https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&q=site%3Awww1.swisscom.ch&oq=site%3Awww1.swisscom.ch
This has been the case for almost a year now, and it does not look like Google tends to respect the blocking in http://www1.swisscom.ch/robots.txt
Any clues why this is or what I could do to resolve it?
Thanks!
-
It sounds like Martijn solved your problem, but I still wanted to add that robots.txt exclusions keep search bots from reading pages that are disallowed, but it does not stop those pages from being returned in search results. When those pages do appear, a lot of times they'll have a page description along the lines of "A description of this page is not available due to this sites robots.txt".
If you want to ensure that pages are kept out of search engines results, you have to use the noindex meta tag on each page.
-
Yes, I think the crucial point is that addressing googlebot wouldn't resolve the specific problem I have here.
I would have tried adressing googlebot otherwise. But to be honest, I wouldn't have expected a much different result than specifying all user agents. Googlebot should be part of that exclusion in any case.
-
I thought that value was a bit outdated, turns out to be still accepted. Although it probably only address this issue for him in Google and I assume it will still remain one in other search engines.
Besides that the problem offered a way better solution in allowing Google not on the HTTPS site.
-
Specifically for Googlebot. I'm pretty surprised people would disagree - Stephan Spencer recommended this in a personal conversation with me.
-
Did you mean a noindex tags for robots or a specific one for googlebot? With the second one I probably get the downvotes.
-
People who are disagreeing with this, explain your reasoning.
-
A noindex tag specific to Googlebot would also be a good idea.
-
You're welcome, it was mostly due to noticing that the first snippet, the homepage, had no snippet and the rest of the pages did have one. That led me to looking at their URL structure. Good luck fixing it!
-
100 points for you Martijn, thanks! I'm pretty sure you've found the problem and I'll go about fixing it. Gotta get used to having https used more frequently now...
-
Hi Phillipp,
You almost got me with this one, but it's fairly simple. In your question you're pointing at the robots.txt of your HTTP page. But it's mostly your HTTP**S **pages that are indexed and if you look at that robots.txt file it's pretty clear why these pages are indexed: https://www1.swisscom.ch/robots.txt all the pages that are indexed match with one of your Allow statements are the complete Disallow. Hopefully that provides you with the insight on how to fix your issue.
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
-
Google indexing is slowing down?
I have up to 20 million unique pages, and so far I've only submitted about 30k of them on my sitemap. We had a few load related errors during googles initial visits, and it thought some were duplicates, but we fixed all that. We haven't gotten a crawl related error for 2 weeks now. Google appears to be indexing fewer and fewer urls every time it visits. Any ideas why? I am not sure how to get all our pages indexed if its going to operate like this... love some help thanks! HnJaXSM.png
Technical SEO | | RyanTheMoz0 -
Vanity URLs are being indexed in Google
We are currently using vanity URLs to track offline marketing, the vanity URL is structured as www.clientdomain.com/publication, this URL then is 302 redirected to the actual URL on the website not a custom landing page. The resulting redirected URL looks like: www.clientdomain.com/xyzpage?utm_source=print&utm_medium=print&utm_campaign=printcampaign. We have started to notice that some of the vanity URLs are being indexed in Google search. To prevent this from happening should we be using a 301 redirect instead of a 302 and will the Google index ignore the utm parameters in the URL that is being 301 redirect to? If not, any suggestions on how to handle? Thanks,
Technical SEO | | seogirl221 -
How do I get my pages to go from "Submitted" to "Indexed" in Google Webmaster Tools?
Background: I recently launched a new site and it's performing much better than the old site in terms of bounce rate, page view, pages per session, session duration, and conversions. As suspected, sessions, users, and % new sessions are all down. Which I'm okay with because the the old site had a lot of low quality traffic going to it. The traffic we have now is much more engaged and targeted. Lastly, the site was built using Squarespace and was launched the middle of August. **Question: **When reviewing Google Webmaster Tools' Sitemaps section, I noticed it says 57 web pages Submitted, but only 5 Indexed! The sitemap that's submitted seems to be all there. I'm not sure if this is a Squarespace thing or what. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!!
Technical SEO | | Nate_D0 -
How to use robots.txt to block areas on page?
Hi, Across the categories/product pages on out site there are archives/shipping info section and the texts are always the same. Would this be treated as duplicated content and harmful for seo? How can I alter robots.txt to tell google not to crawl those particular text Thanks for any advice!
Technical SEO | | LauraHT0 -
Pages removed from Google index?
Hi All, I had around 2,300 pages in the google index until a week ago. The index removed a load and left me with 152 submitted, 152 indexed? I have just re-submitted my sitemap and will wait to see what happens. Any idea why it has done this? I have seen a drop in my rankings since. Thanks
Technical SEO | | TomLondon0 -
Robots.txt not working?
Hello This is my robots.txt file http://www.theprinterdepo.com/Robots.txt However I have 8000 warnings on my dashboard like this:4 What am I missing on the file¿ Crawl Diagnostics Report On-Page Properties <dl> <dt>Title</dt> <dd>Not present/empty</dd> <dt>Meta Description</dt> <dd>Not present/empty</dd> <dt>Meta Robots</dt> <dd>Not present/empty</dd> <dt>Meta Refresh</dt> <dd>Not present/empty</dd> </dl> URL: http://www.theprinterdepo.com/catalog/product_compare/add/product/100/uenc/aHR0cDovL3d3dy50aGVwcmludGVyZGVwby5jb20vaHAtbWFpbnRlbmFjZS1raXQtZm9yLTQtbGo0LWxqNS1mb3ItZXhjaGFuZ2UtcmVmdWJpc2hlZA,,/ 0 Errors No errors found! 1 Warning 302 (Temporary Redirect) Found about 5 hours ago <a class="more">Read More</a>
Technical SEO | | levalencia10 -
Pages not Indexed after a successful Google Fetch
I am trying to understand why google isn't indexing key content on my site. www.BeyondTransition.com is indexed and new pages show up in a couple of hours. My key content is 6 pages of information for each of 3000 events (driven by mySQL on a wordpress platform). These pages are reached via a search page, but no direct navigation from the home page. When I link to an event page from an indexed page it doesn't show up in search results. When I use fetch on webmaster tools the fetch is successful but is then not indexed - or if it does appear in results it's directed to the internal search page e.g. http://www.beyondtransition.com/site/races/course/race110003/ has been fetched and submitted with links but when I search for BeyondTransition Ironman Cozumel I get these results.... So what have I done wrong and how do I go about fixing it? All thoughts and advice appreciated Thanks Denis
Technical SEO | | beyondtransition0 -
Is robots.txt a must-have for 150 page well-structured site?
By looking in my logs I see dozens of 404 errors each day from different bots trying to load robots.txt. I have a small site (150 pages) with clean navigation that allows the bots to index the whole site (which they are doing). There are no secret areas I don't want the bots to find (the secret areas are behind a Login so the bots won't see them). I have used rel=nofollow for internal links that point to my Login page. Is there any reason to include a generic robots.txt file that contains "user-agent: *"? I have a minor reason: to stop getting 404 errors and clean up my error logs so I can find other issues that may exist. But I'm wondering if not having a robots.txt file is the same as some default blank file (or 1-line file giving all bots all access)?
Technical SEO | | scanlin0