Removing a site from Google's index
-
We have a site we'd like to have pulled from Google's index. Back in late June, we disallowed robot access to the site through the robots.txt file and added a robots meta tag with "no index,no follow" commands. The expectation was that Google would eventually crawl the site and remove it from the index in response to those tags. The problem is that Google hasn't come back to crawl the site since late May. Is there a way to speed up this process and communicate to Google that we want the entire site out of the index, or do we just have to wait until it's eventually crawled again?
-
ok. Not abundantly clear upon first reading. Thank you for your help.
-
Thank you for pointing that out Arlene. I do see it now.
The statement before that line is of key importance for an accurate quote. "If you own the site, you can verify your ownership in Webmaster Tools and use the verified URL removal tool to remove an entire directory from Google's search results."
It could be worded better but what they are saying is AFTER your site has already been removed from Google's index via the URL removal tool THEN you can block it with robots.txt. The URL removal tool will remove the pages and keep them out of the index for 90 days. That's when changing the robots.txt file can help.
-
"Note: To ensure your directory or site is permanently removed, you should use robots.txt to block crawler access to the directory (or, if you’re removing a site, to your whole site)."
The above is a quote from the page. You have to expand the section I referenced in my last comment. Just re-posting google's own words.
-
I thought you were offering a quote from the page. It seems that is your summarization. I apologize for my misunderstanding.
I can see how you can make that conclusion but it not accurate. Robots.txt does not ensure a page wont get indexed. I always recommend use of the noindex tag which should be 100% effective for the major search engines.
-
Go here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=164734
Then expand the option down below that says: "<a class="zippy zippy-track zippy-collapse" name="RemoveDirectory">I want to remove an entire site or the contents of a directory from search results"</a>
They basically instruct you to block all robots in the robots.txt file, then request removal of your site. Once it's removed, the robots file will keep it from getting back into the index. They also recommend putting a "noindex" meta tag on each page to ensure nothing will get picked up. I think we have it taken care of at this point. We'll see
-
Arlene, I checked the link you offered but I could not locate the quote you offered anywhere on the page. I am sure it is referring to a different context. Using robots.txt as a blocking tool is fine BEFORE a site or page is indexed, but not after.
-
I used the removal tool and just entered a "/" which put in a request to have everything in all of my site's directories pulled from the index. And I have left "noindex" tags in place on every page. Hopefully this will get it done.
Thanks for your comments guys!
-
We blocked robots from accessing the site because Google told us to. This is straight from the webmaster tools help section:
Note: To ensure your directory or site is permanently removed, you should use robots.txt to block crawler access to the directory (or, if you’re removing a site, to your whole site).
-
I have webmaster tools setup, but I don't see an option to remove the whole site. There is a URL removal tool, but there are over 700 pages I want pulled out of the index. Is there an option in webmaster tools to have the whole site pulled from the index?
-
Actually, since you have access to the site, you can leave the robots.txt at disallowed -- if you go into Google Webmaster Tools, verify your site, and request removal of your entire site. Let me know if you'd like a link on this with more information. This will involve adding an html file or meta tag to your site to verify you have ownership.
-
Thank you. Didn't realize we were shooting ourselves in the foot.
-
Hi Arlene.
The problem is that when you blocked the site with robots.txt, you are preventing Google from re-crawling your site so they cannot see the noindex tag. If you have properly placed the noindex tag on all the pages in your site, then modify your robots.txt file to allow Google to see your site. Once that happens Google will begin crawling your site and then be able to deindex your pages.
The only other suggestion is to submit a sitemap and/or remove the "nofollow" tag. With the nofollow tag on all your pages, Google may visit your site for a single page at a time since you are telling the crawler not to follow any links it finds. You are blocking it's normal discovery of your site.
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 is indexing our old domain
We changed our primary domain from vivitecsolutions.com to vivitec.net. Google is indexing our new domain, but still has our old domain indexed too. The problem is that the old site is timing out because of the https: Thought on how to make the old indexing go away or properly forward the https?
Technical SEO | | AdsposureDev0 -
Using the Google Remove URL Tool to remove https pages
I have found a way to get a list of 'some' of my 180,000+ garbage URLs now, and I'm going through the tedious task of using the URL removal tool to put them in one at a time. Between that and my robots.txt file and the URL Parameters, I'm hoping to see some change each week. I have noticed when I put URL's starting with https:// in to the removal tool, it adds the http:// main URL at the front. For example, I add to the removal tool:- https://www.mydomain.com/blah.html?search_garbage_url_addition On the confirmation page, the URL actually shows as:- http://www.mydomain.com/https://www.mydomain.com/blah.html?search_garbage_url_addition I don't want to accidentally remove my main URL or cause problems. Is this the right way this should look? AND PART 2 OF MY QUESTION If you see the search description in Google for a page you want removed that says the following in the SERP results, should I still go to the trouble of putting in the removal request? www.domain.com/url.html?xsearch_... A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt – learn more.
Technical SEO | | sparrowdog1 -
Google Sitemap - How Long Does it Take Google To Index?
We have changed our sitemap about 1 month ago and Google is yet to index it. We have run a site: search and we still have many pages indexed but we are wondering how long does it take for google to index our sitemap? The last sitemap we put up had thousands of pages indexed within a fortnight, but for some reason this version is taking way longer. We are also confident that there are no errors in this version. Help!
Technical SEO | | JamesDFA0 -
Asking to remove links from other sites
How hard is it to get people to take off links that point to your site that are on theirs? I have about 4 sites that I would like my link OFF of their blogroll because I think I was hit by the penguin update because of that. Do you know if there is anything you can do if they DON'T take it off?
Technical SEO | | SeaC0 -
Why has Google removed meta descriptions from SERPS?
One of my clients' sites has just been redesigned with lots of new URLs added. So the 301 redirections have been put in place and most of the new URLs have now been indexed. BUT Google is still showing all the old URLs in the SERPS and even worse it only displays the title tag. The meta description is not shown, no rich snippet, no text, nothing below the title. This is proving disastrous as visitors are not clicking on a result with no description. I have to assume its got something to do with the redirection, but why is it not showing the descriptions? I've checked the old URLs and he meta description is definitely still in the code, but Google is choosing not to show it. I've never seen this before so I'm struggling for an answer. I'd like to know why or how this is happening, and if it can be resolved. I realise that this may be resolved when Google stops showing all the old URLs but there's no telling how long that will take (can it be speeded up?)
Technical SEO | | Websensejim0 -
Site 'filtered' by Google in early July.... and still filtered!
Hi, Our site got demoted by Google all of a sudden back in early July. You can view the site here: http://alturl.com/4pfrj and you may read the discussions I posted in Google's forums here: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=6e8f9aab7e384d88&hl=en http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=276dc6687317641b&hl=en Those discussions chronicle what happened, and what we've done since. I don't want to make this a long post by retyping it all here, hence the links. However, we've made various changes (as detailed), such as getting rid of duplicate content (use of noindex on various pages etc), and ensuring there is no hidden text (we made an unintentional blunder there through use of a 3rd party control which used CSS hidden text to store certain data). We have also filed reconsideration requests with Google and been told that no manual penalty has been applied. So the problem is down to algorithmic filters which are being applied. So... my reason for posting here is simply to see if anyone here can help us discover if there is anything we have missed? I'd hope that we've addressed the main issues and that eventually our Google ranking will recover (ie. filter removed.... it isn't that we 'rank' poorly, but that a filter is bumping us down, to, for example, page 50).... but after three months it sure is taking a while! It appears that a 30 day penalty was originally applied, as our ranking recovered in early August. But a few days later it dived down again (so presumably Google analysed the site again, found a problem and applied another penalty/filter). I'd hope that might have been 30 or 60 days, but 60 days have now passed.... so perhaps we have a 90 day penalty now. OR.... perhaps there is no time frame this time, simply the need to 'fix' whatever is constantly triggering the filter (that said, I 'feel' like a time frame is there, especially given what happened after 30 days). Of course the other aspect that can always be worked on (and oft-mentioned) is the need for more and more original content. However, we've done a lot to increase this and think our Guide pages are pretty useful now. I've looked at many competitive sites which list in Google and they really don't offer anything more than we do..... so if that is the issue it sure is puzzling if we're filtered and they aren't. Anyway, I'm getting wordy now, so I'll pause. I'm just asking if anyone would like to have a quick look at the site and see what they can deduce? We have of course run it through SEOMoz's tools and made use of the suggestions. Our target pages generally rate as an A for SEO in the reports. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Go2Holidays0 -
Why did our site drop in Google rankings?
My site's URL (web address) is: http://tinyurl.com/3svn2l9 Hi there, We operate a travel site that lists numerous tours, accommodation and activities. Since 6th August 2011 we have dropped from top 10 SERP rankings of our pages to around result number 100 (page 10) and losing massive amount of visitors via Google Search. Our Yahoo and Bing rankings are still in the top10. We need your advice and quick! The last changes we have made are the following: -redirected the non-www version to the www version on the 1st August -bought advertising with a follow link in a sidebar that is being populated across the site (+4000 pages) about 2 months ago -added a blog to the website 2 weeks ago and posted 2 posts to date. Additionally, our website structure allows visitors (and bots) to see the same listings via different URLs which caused duplicate content. This has been the case since the launch of our website about 1 year ago. To prevent this duplicate content we have placed canonical tags on the individual listings pages. Why did our site all of a sudden plummet in the rankings?
Technical SEO | | Robbern0 -
Will Google index a 301 redirect for a new site?
So here is the problem... We have setup a 301redirect for our clients website. When you search the clients name it comes up with the old .co.uk website. We have made this redirect to the new .com website. However on the SERPs when it shows the .co.uk it shows the old title pages which currently say 'Holding Page'. When you click on that link it takes you to the fully functioning .com website. My question is, will the title tags in the SERPs which show the .co.uk update to the new ones from the .com? I'm thinking it will be just a case of Google catching up on things and it will sort itself out eventually. If anyone could help I would REALLY appreciate it. Thanks Chris
Technical SEO | | Weerdboil0