How did my dev site end up in the search results?
-
We use a subdomain for our dev site. I never thought anything of it because the only way you can reach the dev site is through a vpn. Google has somehow indexed it. Any ideas on how that happened? I am adding the noindex tag, should I used canonical? Or is there anything else you can think of?
-
Personally, I'd still recommend using robots.txt to disallow all crawlers, even if more steps are taken.
-
Don't use tool removal, it can go bad indeed. Now, are you sure that there are no external links coming from anywhere?
For now I'd recommend putting noindex, nofollow on that dev subdomain and do manual recrawl through GWT.
-
It just uses internal links. Do you think I should try the webmaster tools removal? That seems like it could go wrong.
-
I never used screaming frog, does it check both external and internal links?
-
I have ran screaming frog to see if there are any links to any pages and but couldn't see any. Even if Google did try to follow it the firewall would stop them. It is so strange.
-
Then my first assumption is that it's linked from somewhere - read my comment a little above.
-
Then there is a leak somewhere - Google bots can "see" your subdomain.
Or it's been simply linked from somewhere. Then Google will try to follow the link and that would make it indexed.
-
They are telling me that there are no holes, and I have tried getting to the pages but can not do it unless I am on my vpn.
-
We never updated the robots.txt because the site was behind a firewall. If you click on any of the results it will not load the page unless on my VPN.
-
Robots.txt won't help anyhow. Bots still can see that there is such directory, they just won't see what's inside of those directories/subdomains.
-
Hi there.
If what you say is true, then there are only two answers: you got a leak somewhere or your settings/configuration is messed up.I'd say go talk to your system admin and make sure that everything what's supposed to be closed is closed, IPs, which are supposed to be open for use are open and those IPs only.
-
Have you updated the dev sites robots.txt to disallow everything? It is up to the bot to listen, but that combined with removing all of the dev URLs from Google Webmaster tools should do the trick.
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
-
In Google Search Results ....Is it a site link or what? How to get this?
Hello Experts, When I search in google any keyword like abcd in search results for one website after meta description there are showing few links of website ( image attached ) Can you please let me know what is this & how to achieve such type of links? Thanks! mdJBLYb
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wright3350 -
Ranking on google search
Hello Mozzers Moz On page grader shows A grade for the particular URL,but my page was not ranking on top 100 Google search. Any help is appreciated ,Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sobanadevi0 -
Why is my m-dot site outranking my main site in SERPs?
My client has a WP site and a Duda mobile site that we inherited. For some reason their m-dot site is ranking on P1 of Google for their top KWs instead of the main site which is much more robust. The main site might rank beyond page 5 when the generic home page for their m-dot site appears on P1. Does anyone have any idea why this might be happening?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Etna0 -
My website (non-adult) is not appearing in Google search results when i have safe search settings on. How can i fix this?
Hi, I have this issue where my website does not appear in Google search results when i have the safe search settings on. If i turn the safe search settings off, my site appears no problem. I'm guessing Google is categorizing my website as adult, which it definitely is not. Has anyone had this issue before? Or does anyone know how to resolve this issue? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CupidTeam0 -
What do I do about sites that copy my content?
I've noticed that there are a number of websites that are copying my content. They are putting the full article on their site, mentioning that it was reposted from my site, but contains no links to me. How should I approach this? What are my rights and should I ask them to remove it or add a link? Will the duplicate content affect me?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnPeters0 -
How come I get different rankings on same word in local search results of Google?
Dear fellow Mozzer's, for one of my clients I get different local results in Google. My client is a real-estate broker and when I search on "real-estate agent" + the city name we are on top. So whoohoo you would say BUT when Firefox has the exact city name determined as the location I am in and I only use "real-estate agent" I get also the local results but we are listed as number 8?? Hope anyone can give me insights as I have no idea what's causing this. Thanks in advance for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | newtraffic0 -
Site structure question
Hello Everyone, I have a question regarding site structure and I would like to mastermind it with everyone. So I am optimizing a website for a Ford Dealership in Boston, MA. The way the site architecture is set up is as follows: Home >>>> New Inventory >>> Inventory Page (with search refinement choices) After you refine your search (lets say we choose a Ford F150 in white) it shows a page with images, price information and specs. (Nothing the bots or users can sink their teeth into) My thoughts are to create category pages for each Ford model with awesome written content and THEN link to the inventory pages. So it would look like this: Home >>> New Inventory >>> Ford 150 Awesome Category Page>>>>Ford F150 Inventory Page I would work hard at getting these category pages to rank for the vehicle for our GEO targeted locations. Here is my questions: Would you be annoyed to first land on a category page with lots of written text, reviews images and videos first and then link off to the inventory page. Or would you prefer to go right from the new inventory page to the actual inventory page and start looking for vehicles? Thanks you so much, Bill
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wparlaman0 -
On-Site Optimization Tips for Job site?
I am working on a job site that only ranks well for the homepage with very low ranking internal pages. My job pages do not rank what so ever and are database driven and often times turn to 404 pages after the job has been filled. The job pages have to no content either. Anybody have any technical on-site recommendations for a job site I am working on especially regarding my internal pages? (Cross Country Allied.com)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Melia0