Why is the Site indexed?
-
Hi,
I'm trying to test a few things for which I've registered and set up new domains.
For the set up I used Wordpress.
Each Site has about three articles in it but no links pointing to them. Also I didn't take any measures to get my site indexed.
However, one week later all my sites were indexed. Why is that and how can it be?
I'm thankful for any answer since the problem is really ruining my test environment.
The only clue I have, as to why this could be happening, is that I didn't remove the ping sites.Is that the reason? Or are there also other reasons?
Thanks
-
I'd defiinitely recommend a password protect or IP included list at .htaccess. From experience I've found that Google tends to ignore no index when you're trying to keep a test environment under wraps. Even worse, if your site is large you can end up with visitors accessing this in error. Maybe add it to GWT but ensure that it is clearly marked to be excluded from the index. Add the .htaccess with an IP allowed list only and add the no-index clearly to each page.
-
What we do for our test environments is password protect the root directory with .htaccess, this can be a test directory on a live domain, or it can be the whole domain depending on needs. This works great when its just you and a handful of people who need access to the site.
-
It'll be because, as you say, you didn't stop them from being pinged. You should have set up the websites robot.txt to prevent any premature crawling. You can also do this in the WP dashboard, under settings, I believe.
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
-
Site Ranking for keywords that they haven't targeted in content
There is a site that I am constantly battling for the #1 spot for a particular keyword and I can't see that they are doing any link building, they are not using any anchor text for the keyword "at all" just their company name (not exact match) and their content doesn't even contain the keyword. I used Open site explorer to analyze their activity, but they are doing something I can't figure out from that data. Any other tools to use? I have higher quality links than them, post content nearly 5 times per week to my blog and their blog hasn't been updated in ages, I kill them in social media, there isn't one instance that they are better than my site and I only build quality driven links, no blog comment crap and get featured on lots of industry blogs for our work. I distribute my content very effectively, I just can't figure it out. They were no where about 5 months ago now they are tearing it up for lots of keywords in the industry top spots. I can build a few links and surpass them, but I have to do it every week or so and I think they are doing something fishy. I just want to figure out what they are doing and bury them. I don't want to post their url and mine here as I don't want them to see this post in search results.
Competitive Research | | photoseo10 -
Why is my competitor's site ranking #1?
I'm about to work for a local business website that offers cleaning services and products. The keyword they want the most is ruled by a very odd site; My client's competitor's site has been around for 7 years. (Less than the average of it's competitors. Less than my client's) Has 1 backlink. Lower PA MR MT & DA than any other in the SERP. It's a 1 page site made with Flash. They do not have FB or Twitter accounts. So I thought maybe they were ranking so well because of their traffic. But neither my client, me or my coworkers have ever heard of this company. And yet, they are ranking #1. And the only thing I notice that might have helped is that the title of their page is the exact keyword and nothing more. Any ideas?
Competitive Research | | Eblan0 -
Why is this site ranking higher?!
I'm trying to figure out why www.lvimmigrationattorney.com would be ranking higher on several keywords than www.immigrationlawnv.com. It doesn't make sense to me because the latter site has a higher page authority and mozrank, as well as more followed links. The domain authority from the linking sites to each site are pretty close. I'm sure I'm missing something, but I can't put my finger on it. Any idea?
Competitive Research | | atstickel120 -
Analysis tool that returns all possible phrases that a web site ranks for
Is there anything out there similar to the semrush.com's competitor research that can tell you a web sites total amount of appearances on Google that includes the phrases for which the domain ranks?
Competitive Research | | thebaldman30 -
Keyword Search - another site bypassed me and they are not ranked well...
I was trying to optimize the keywords "music for kids" . This is a no brainer because my URL is "musicforkids" My On-Page Report Card for "music for kids" gives my site a "A". The on page report card for the other site gets an "F". But the other site comes up number ONE in the organic Google search and my site comes up number three. The two sites above me receive a crappy on page Keyword report for the key words "music for kids" but they still come up above me for that search term. What's the deal?
Competitive Research | | musicforkids1 -
How can I find the pages on my site with the highest page rank?
I have a lot pages on my site and I'm wondering if there is a tool out there that will find all the pages with the highest pagerank for me? Also, it would be helpful to find that on competitors sites as well. Any ideas?
Competitive Research | | shawn810 -
Keyword based link problem on site
So I think I might have identified an issue with a site that I'm trying to get ranked for a specific keyword but, wanted to get some opinions before I started making some big changes on the site. On my homepage I have the keyword that I would like to be ranked for in the title lets say "Blue Widgets - Company Name', also on the home page I have some descriptions of our services including the keywords. I also have a couple of the keyword based links within in the content, navigation and footer. But these keyword based links all point to another page on the site: blue-widgets.htm. If I really want my home page to rank for the keyword "Blue Widgets' should all of these links point to the home page instead of the sub page? I know there are a great number of other factors that contribute to rankings but looking at my competition, this is something that they seem to be doing. The keyword based links within the content, navigation or footer all point to the homepage. I also have a higher Domain Authority than some of the sites that rank higher than me so I'm not sure if building more links is the answer. Of course I always want to build natural links but these sites don't seem to be doing that either. Any comments, suggestions or input would be greatly appreciated.
Competitive Research | | TRICORSystems0 -
List of all outbound links to a specified site
For example, I want to search for every link to my site from stumbleupon. Is there a way to do this? Much thanks in advance!
Competitive Research | | TrevorMcKendrick0