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. How to check if the page is indexable for SEs?

    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.

    How to check if the page is indexable for SEs?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    3
    8
    11882
    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.
    • boostaman
      boostaman last edited by

      Hi, I'm building the extension for Chrome, which should show me the status of the indexability of the page I'm on.

      So, I need to know all the methods to check if the page has the potential to be crawled and indexed by a Search Engines. I've come up with a few methods:

      • Check the URL in robots.txt file (if it's not disallowed)
      • Check page metas (if there are not noindex meta)
      • Check if page is the same for unregistered users (for those pages only available for registered users of the site)

      Are there any more methods to check if a particular page is indexable (or not closed for indexation) by Search Engines?

      Thanks in advance!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • KristinaKledzik
        KristinaKledzik @boostaman last edited by

        I understand the difference between what you're doing and what Google shows, I guess I'm just not sure when I'd want to know that something could technically be indexed, but isn't?

        I guess I'm not your target market! 🙂 Good luck with your tool.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • boostaman
          boostaman @KristinaKledzik last edited by

          With "site:site.com" you can only see if the page is indexED, but to know if it's indexABLE you need to dig deeper. That is why I've decided to automate this process.

          As I already told, this gonna be a browser extension, once you got on any page, this ext. automatically checks the page, and show the status (with color, I guess), if this page indexed, if not - it shows if its indexABLE. When I'm looking for linkbuilding resources, this little tool should help a lot 🙂

          KristinaKledzik 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • KristinaKledzik
            KristinaKledzik @boostaman last edited by

            Ah, gotcha. Personally, I use Google itself to find out if something is indexable: if it's my own site, I can use Fetch as Google, and the robots.txt tester; if it's another site, you can search for "site:[URL]" to see if Google's indexed it.

            I think this tool could be really good if you keep it as an icon and it glows or something if you've accidentally deindexed the page? Then it's helping you proactively. 🙂

            Hope this helps!

            Kristina

            boostaman 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • boostaman
              boostaman @KristinaKledzik last edited by

              Actually I'm not. That's why I'm asking, to not to miss this basic stuff, so I really appreciate your advice. Thank you!

              If I get your question correctly, you are asking why this extension is need for?

              Well, 2 main aims:

              1. When I want to check any of pages on my own websites, I just visit the page and see if it's ok with all the robots stuff. (or if it should be closed from robots, see if it really is)

              2. For linkbuilding purposes. When I come to the page and see a link from it to external website and I know for sure that I can get the same link to my site, I'm asking myself, if it worth getting link from the page like this, if it's gonna be indexed. Why waste your time on getting links from pages that are closed from indexation.

              KristinaKledzik 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • boostaman
                boostaman @Mobilio last edited by

                Hello Peter,

                First of all, thank you for the great ideas.

                I don't think it's necessary to call the API, as this check references to only one URL (so no aggressiveness) , I need it to be done as fast as possible. But the idea with Structured Data - bravo!

                Thanks a lot!

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • KristinaKledzik
                  KristinaKledzik last edited by

                  You're probably already doing this, but make sure that all of your tests are using the Googlebot user agent! That could cause different results, especially with the robots.txt check.

                  A sense check: what is your plugin going to offer over Google Search Console's Fetch as Google and robots.txt Tester?

                  boostaman 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                  • Mobilio
                    Mobilio last edited by

                    You also can check for HTTP header results for crawling too:
                    https://developers.google.com/webmasters/control-crawl-index/docs/robots_meta_tag

                    Also you can use some of Google services for this. Specially PageSpeed API:
                    https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/v2/reference/

                    Once you call this API it return JSON with list of blocked resources. It's little bit slower but i found that this is safe. Some hostings have IDS (intruder detection systems) and when some crawl them little bit aggressive they block whole IP or IP range. I know few cases when site is OK to be seen from users, but blocked from Google IP. Webmasters wasn't happy when they discover this. They call hosting few times and got "there isn't issues from our side, we didn't block anything". And 6 hours later they get "seems that another department was blocked this server for few specific IPs".

                    About checking for logged/nonloged users. You can use StructuredData Testing Tool. Also one call to get JSON with full HTTP response and then compare it with your result.

                    boostaman 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                    • 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

                    • Ashcastle

                      URL structure - Page Path vs No Page Path

                      We are currently re building our URL structure for eccomerce websites. We have seen a lot of site removing the page path on product pages e.g. https://www.theiconic.co.nz/liberty-beach-blossom-shirt-680193.html versus what would normally be https://www.theiconic.co.nz/womens-clothing-tops/liberty-beach-blossom-shirt-680193.html Should we be removing the site page path for a product page to keep the url shorter or should we keep it? I can see that we would loose the hierarchy juice to a product page but not sure what is the right thing to do.

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ashcastle
                      0
                    • KenSchaefer

                      No Index thousands of thin content pages?

                      Hello all! I'm working on a site that features a service marketed to community leaders that allows the citizens of that community log 311 type issues such as potholes, broken streetlights, etc.  The "marketing" front of the site is 10-12 pages of content to be optimized for the community leader searchers however, as you can imagine there are thousands and thousands of pages of one or two line complaints such as, "There is a pothole on Main St. and 3rd." These complaint pages are not about the service, and I'm thinking not helpful to my end goal of gaining awareness of the service through search for the community leaders.  Community leaders are searching for "311 request service", not "potholes on main street". Should all of these "complaint" pages be NOINDEX'd?   What if there are a number of quality links pointing to the complaint pages?  Do I have to worry about losing Domain Authority if I do NOINDEX them? Thanks for any input. Ken

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KenSchaefer
                      0
                    • aua

                      Password Protected Page(s) Indexed

                      Hi, I am wondering if my website can get a penalty if some password protected pages are showing up when I search on google: site:www.example.com/sub-group/pass-word-protected-page That shows that my password protected page was indexed either before or after adding the password protection. I've seen people suggest no indexing the page. Is that the best method to take care of this? What if we are planning on pushing the page live later on? All of these pages have no title tag, meta description, image alt text, etc. Should I add them for each page? I am wondering what is the best step, especially if we are planning on pushing the page(s) live. Thanks for any help!

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | aua
                      0
                    • bondhoward

                      Google indexed wrong pages of my website.

                      When I google site:www.ayurjeewan.com, after 8 pages, google shows Slider and shop pages. Which I don't want to be indexed. How can I get rid of these pages?

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bondhoward
                      0
                    • Rubix

                      Do you add 404 page into robot file or just add no index tag?

                      Hi, got different opinion on this so i wanted to double check with your comment is. We've got /404.html page and I was wondering if you would add this page to robot text so it wouldn't be indexed or would you just add no index tag? What would be the best approach? Thanks!

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Rubix
                      0
                    • HrThomsen

                      Best practice for removing indexed internal search pages from Google?

                      Hi Mozzers I know that it’s best practice to block Google from indexing internal search pages, but what’s best practice when “the damage is done”? I have a project where a substantial part of our visitors and income lands on an internal search page, because Google has indexed them (about 3 %). I would like to block Google from indexing the search pages via the meta noindex,follow tag because: Google Guidelines: “Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don't add much value for users coming from search engines.” http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769 Bad user experience The search pages are (probably) stealing rankings from our real landing pages Webmaster Notification: “Googlebot found an extremely high number of URLs on your site” with links to our internal search results I want to use the meta tag to keep the link juice flowing. Do you recommend using the robots.txt instead? If yes, why? Should we just go dark on the internal search pages, or how shall we proceed with blocking them? I’m looking forward to your answer! Edit: Google have currently indexed several million of our internal search pages.

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HrThomsen
                      0
                    • Peter264

                      NOINDEX listing pages: Page 2, Page 3... etc?

                      Would it be beneficial to NOINDEX category listing pages except for the first page.  For example on this site: http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/101/fsx-missions/ Has lots of pages such as Page 2, Page 3, Page 4... etc: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aflyawaysimulation.com+fsx+missions Would there be any SEO benefit of NOINDEX on these pages?  Of course, FOLLOW is default, so links would still be followed and juice applied. Your thoughts and suggestions are much appreciated.

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter264
                      0
                    • digisavvy

                      There's a website I'm working with that has a .php extension. All the pages do. What's the best practice to remove the .php extension across all pages?

                      Client wishes to drop the .php extension on all their pages (they've got around 2k pages). I assured them that wasn't necessary. However, in the event that I do end up doing this what's the best practices way (and easiest way) to do this? This is also a WordPress site. Thanks.

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | digisavvy
                      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.