Removing CSS & JS Files from Index
-
Hi,
Google has indexed a few .CSS and .JS files that belong to our WordPress plugins and themes. I had them blocked via robots, but realized this doesn't prevent indexation (and can likely hurt us since Google wants to access these files).
I've since removed the robots instructions, submitted a removal request via Search Console, but want to make sure they don't come back.
Is there a way to put a noindex tag within .CSS and .JS files? Or should I do something with .htaccess instead?
-
I figured .htaccess would be the best route. Thank you for researching and confirming. I appreciate it.
-
Hi Tim,
Assigning a noindex tag to these files will not block them, only prevent them from showing in SERPs. This is the intended goal and the reason I deleted my robots.txt file which prevented crawling.
-
There's quite a big difference between crawling directives, which block and indexing directives. This article by (former?) Moz user S_ebastian_ is a good foundation read.
This article at developers.google.com is a good second read. If I'm understanding it right, Google thinks in terms of crawling directives vs indexing / serving directives.
My attempt at <tl rl="">:</tl>
crawling = looking, using in any way :: controlled via robots.txt
indexing / serving = indexing, archiving, displaying snippets in results, etc :: controlled via html meta tags or web server htaccess (or similar for other web servers).
I'm not convinced yet, that asking for noindex via htaccess causes the same sort of grief that deny in robots.txt causes.
-
I would seriously think again when it comes to blocking/no-indexing your CSS and JS files - Google has in the past stated that if they cannot fully render your site properly then this could lead to poorer rankings.
You will also likely get notifications in your Search Console as errors for this too.
Check out this great article from July this year which goes into more details.
-
I haven't encountered undesirable .css or .js indexing myself (yet), but as you surmised, maybe this htaccess directive might be worth trying?
<filesmatch ".(txt|log|xml|css|js)$"="">Header set X-Robots-Tag "noindex"</filesmatch>
Google seems to support it
-
Unless I'm severely misreading the links provided, which I've read before, it seems Google is stating that they read, render, and sometimes index .CSS and .JS files. Here's an article written a week after the second article you posted.
The aforementioned WordPress plugin and theme files hosted on my server are indeed showing up in Google SERPs.
I do not want to prevent Googlebot from reaching these files as they're needed for optimal site performance, but I do want them to be no-indexed. Thus, I don't want robots.txt to prevent crawling, only indexing.
Let me know if I'm misunderstanding.
-
TL;DR - You're hesitated about problem that doesn't exist.
Googlebot doesn't index CSS or JS files. They index text files, HTML, PDF, DOC, XLS, etc. But doesn't index style sheets or javascript files.
All you need in WordPress is to create blank robots.txt file where WP is installed with this content:
User-agent: *
Disallow:
Sitemap: http://site/sitemap-file-name.xmlAnd that's all. This is explain many times:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.bg/2014/05/understanding-web-pages-better.html
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.bg/2014/10/updating-our-technical-webmaster.html
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 to index Backlink Fast
hi, From the past some month i am facing the problem in indexing backlinks, please share the method to index backlink in google fast
Technical SEO | | vijay231 -
How important is AMP?
I have a client site with 200+ landing pages. We implemented AMP and many of the pages lost a lot of key elements including, sidebars, Calls to Action and footers. Our developer claims that we need to customize each of the 200+ pages for AMP to show those things (don't 100% believe him). So the questions are: a. How important is AMP? if we dump AMP will that hurt us? The site is already mobile friendly and clean, loads fast.
Technical SEO | | dk7
b.Does it sound fishy that he says each page needs to be cusotomized to show sidebar, footer content, CTAs?0 -
Duplicate content issue: staging urls has been indexed and need to know how to remove it from the serps
duplicate content issue: staging url has been indexed by google ( many pages) and need to know how to remove them from the serps. Bing sees the staging url as moved permanently Google sees the staging urls (240 results) and redirects to the correct url Should I be concerned about duplicate content and request Google to remove the staging url removed Thanks Guys
Technical SEO | | Taiger0 -
Removing indexed website
I had a .in TLD version of my .com website floated for about 15 days, which was a duplicate copy of .com website. I did not wish to use the .in further for SEO duplication reasons and had let the .in domain expire on 26th April. But still now when I search from my website the .in version also shows up in results and even in google webmaster it shows the the website with maximum (190) number of links to my .com website. I am sure this is hurting the ranking of my .com website. How can the .in website be removed from googles indexing and search results. Given that is has expired also. thanks
Technical SEO | | geekwik0 -
How to know which pages are indexed by Google?
So apparently we have some sites that are just duplicates of our original main site but aiming at different markets/cities. They have completely different urls but are the same content as our main site with different market/city changed. How do I know for sure which ones are indexed. I enter the url into Google and its not there. Even if I put in " around " it. Is there another way to query google for my site? Is there a website that will tell you which ones are indexed? This is probably a dumb question.
Technical SEO | | greenhornet770 -
Update index date
If I update the content of a page without changing the initial url and google crawls my new page, will the index date (that appears in the SERP) change to the latest update? In positive case how many change should I do to consider an update? tks
Technical SEO | | fabrico230 -
Will rel canonical tags remove previously indexed URLs?
Hello, 7 days ago, we implemented canonical tags to resolve duplicate content issues that had been caused by URL parameters. These "duplicate content" had already been indexed. Now that the URLs have rel canonical tags in place, will Google automatically remove from its index the other URLs with the URL parameters? I ask because we have been tracking the approximate number of URLs indexed by doing a site: search in Google, and we have barely noticed a decrease in URLs indexed. Thanks.
Technical SEO | | yacpro130 -
Non existant URLs being generated in index
Hi all, I have a pretty big problem with my site at the moment which I'm worried will have an impact on my rankings. I've just had a crawl test done and for some reason I get a load of urls returned that don't actually exist... For example I am getting urls like this in my crawl test and xml sitemap: www.applicablejobs.com/jobs/add/android-designer/android-designer/android-designer/android-developer/android-developer/ www.applicablejobs.com/jobs/add/android-designer/android-designer/android-designer/android-developer/iphone-designer/ All the urls seem to start off with www.applicablejobs.com/jobs/ and there is an entry for every conceivable combination of slugs. I can only assume that if the crawl test and an xml sitemap generator is indexing these urls then Google and other search engines probably are too. Does anyone have any idea what might be causing this issue and what can I do to remove them from Googles index if they are? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Benji870