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.
Robots.txt: how to exclude sub-directories correctly?
-
Hello here,
I am trying to figure out the correct way to tell SEs to crawls this:
http://www.mysite.com/directory/
But not this:
http://www.mysite.com/directory/sub-directory/
or this:
http://www.mysite.com/directory/sub-directory2/sub-directory/...
But with the fact I have thousands of sub-directories with almost infinite combinations, I can't put the following definitions in a manageable way:
disallow: /directory/sub-directory/
disallow: /directory/sub-directory2/
disallow: /directory/sub-directory/sub-directory/
disallow: /directory/sub-directory2/subdirectory/
etc...
I would end up having thousands of definitions to disallow all the possible sub-directory combinations.
So, is the following way a correct, better and shorter way to define what I want above:
allow: /directory/$
disallow: /directory/*
Would the above work?
Any thoughts are very welcome! Thank you in advance.
Best,
Fab.
-
I mentioned both. You add a meta robots to noindex and remove from the sitemap.
-
But google is still free to index a link/page even if it is not included in xml sitemap.
-
Install Yoast Wordpress SEO plugin and use that to restrict what is indexed and what is allowed in a sitemap.
-
I am using wordpress, Enfold theme (themeforest).
I want some files to be accessed by google, but those should not be indexed.
Here is an example: http://prntscr.com/h8918o
I have currently blocked some JS directories/files using robots.txt (check screenshot)
But due to this I am not able to pass Mobile Friendly Test on Google: http://prntscr.com/h8925z (check screenshot)
Is its possible to allow access, but use a tag like noindex in the robots.txt file. Or is there any other way out.
-
Yes, everything looks good, Webmaster Tools gave me the expected results with the following directives:
allow: /directory/$
disallow: /directory/*
Which allows this URL:
http://www.mysite.com/directory/
But doesn't allow the following one:
http://www.mysite.com/directory/sub-directory2/...
This page also gives an update similar to mine:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/156449?hl=en
I think I am good! Thanks
-
Thank you Michael, it is my understanding then that my idea of doing this:
allow: /directory/$
disallow: /directory/*
Should work just fine. I will test it within Google Webmaster Tools, and let you know if any problems arise.
In the meantime if anyone else has more ideas about all this and can confirm me that would be great!
Thank you again.
-
I've always stuck to Disallow and followed -
"This is currently a bit awkward, as there is no "Allow" field. The easy way is to put all files to be disallowed into a separate directory, say "stuff", and leave the one file in the level above this directory:"
http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html
From https://developers.google.com/webmasters/control-crawl-index/docs/robots_txt this seems contradictory
|
/*
| equivalent to / | equivalent to / | Equivalent to "/" -- the trailing wildcard is ignored. |I think this post will be very useful for you - http://moz.com/community/q/allow-or-disallow-first-in-robots-txt
-
Thank you Michael,
Google and other SEs actually recognize the "allow:" command:
https://developers.google.com/webmasters/control-crawl-index/docs/robots_txt
The fact is: if I don't specify that, how can I be sure that the following single command:
disallow: /directory/*
Doesn't prevent SEs to spider the /directory/ index as I'd like to?
-
As long as you dont have directories somewhere in /* that you want indexed then I think that will work. There is no allow so you don't need the first line just
disallow: /directory/*
You can test out here- https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/156449?rd=1
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
-
Robots.txt blocked internal resources Wordpress
Hi all, We've recently migrated a Wordpress website from staging to live, but the robots.txt was deleted. I've created the following new one: User-agent: *
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mat_C
Allow: /
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Disallow: /wp-content/plugins/
Disallow: /wp-content/cache/
Disallow: /wp-content/themes/
Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php However, in the site audit on SemRush, I now get the mention that a lot of pages have issues with blocked internal resources in robots.txt file. These blocked internal resources are all cached and minified css elements: links, images and scripts. Does this mean that Google won't crawl some parts of these pages with blocked resources correctly and thus won't be able to follow these links and index the images? In other words, is this any cause for concern regarding SEO? Of course I can change the robots.txt again, but will urls like https://example.com/wp-content/cache/minify/df983.js end up in the index? Thanks for your thoughts!2 -
Should comments and feeds be disallowed in robots.txt?
Hi My robots file is currently set up as listed below. From an SEO point of view is it good to disallow feeds, rss and comments? I feel allowing comments would be a good thing because it's new content that may rank in the search engines as the comments left on my blog often refer to questions or companies folks are searching for more information on. And the comments are added regularly. What's your take? I'm also concerned about the /page being blocked. Not sure how that benefits my blog from an SEO point of view as well. Look forward to your feedback. Thanks. Eddy User-agent: Googlebot Crawl-delay: 10 Allow: /* User-agent: * Crawl-delay: 10 Disallow: /wp- Disallow: /feed/ Disallow: /trackback/ Disallow: /rss/ Disallow: /comments/feed/ Disallow: /page/ Disallow: /date/ Disallow: /comments/ # Allow Everything Allow: /*
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | workathomecareers0 -
Can you redirect specific sub domain URLs?
ello! We host our PDFs, Images, CSS all in a sub domain. For the question, let's call this sub.cyto.com. I've noticed a particular PDF doing really well, infact it has gathered valuable external links from high authoritative sites. To top it off, it gets good visits. I've been going back and forth with our developers to move this PDF to a subfolder structure.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bio-RadAbs
For example: www.cyto.com/document/xxxx.pdf In my perspective, if I move this and set up a permanent redirect, then all the external links the PDF gathered, link juice and future visits will be attributed to the main website. Since the PDF is existing in the subdomain, I can't even track direct visits nor get the link juice. It appears in top position of Google as well. My developer says it is better to keep images, pdf, css in the subdomain. I see his point and an idea I have is to: convert the pdf to a webpage. Set up a 301 redirect from the existing subdomain to this webpage Upload the pdf with a new name and link to it from the webpage, so users can download if they choose to. This should give me the existing rank juice. However, my question is whether you can set up a 301 redirect for just a single subdomain URL to a folder structure URL? sub.cyto.com/xxx.pdf to www.cyto.com/document/xxxx.pdf?0 -
Archiving a festival website - subdomain or directory?
Hi guys I look after a festival website whose program changes year in and year out. There are a handful of mainstay events in the festival which remain each year, but there are a bunch of other events which change each year around the mainstay programming.This often results in us redoing the website each year (a frustrating experience indeed!) We don't archive our past festivals online, but I'd like to start doing so for a number of reasons 1. These past festivals have historical value - they happened, and they contribute to telling the story of the festival over the years. They can also be used as useful windows into the upcoming festival. 2. The old events (while no longer running) often get many social shares, high quality links and in some instances still drive traffic. We try out best to 301 redirect these high value pages to the new festival website, but it's not always possible to find a similar alternative (so these redirects often go to the homepage) Anyway, I've noticed some festivals archive their content into a subdirectory - i.e. www.event.com/2012 However, I'm thinking it would actually be easier for my team to archive via a subdomain like 2012.event.com - and always use the www.event.com URL for the current year's event. I'm thinking universally redirecting the content would be easier, as would cloning the site / database etc. My question is - is one approach (i.e. directory vs. subdomain) better than the other? Do I need to be mindful of using a subdomain for archival purposes? Hope this all makes sense. Many thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cos20300 -
Should canonical links be included or excluded in a sitemap?
Our company is in the process of updating our sitemap. Should we include or exclude canonical links.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebRiverGroup0 -
URL Structure for Directory Site
We have a directory that we're building and we're not sure if we should try to make each page an extension of the root domain or utilize sub-directories as users narrow down their selection. What is the best practice here for maximizing your SERP authority? Choice #1 - Hyphenated Architecture (no sub-folders): State Page /state/ City Page /city-state/ Business Page /business-city-state/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | knowyourbank
4) Location Page /locationname-city-state/ or.... Choice #2 - Using sub-folders on drill down: State Page /state/ City Page /state/city Business Page /state/city/business/
4) Location Page /locationname-city-state/ Again, just to clarify, I need help in determining what the best methodology is for achieving the greatest SEO benefits. Just by looking it would seem that choice #1 would work better because the URL's are very clear and SEF. But, at the same time it may be less intuitive for search. I'm not sure. What do you think?0 -
Using 2 wildcards in the robots.txt file
I have a URL string which I don't want to be indexed. it includes the characters _Q1 ni the middle of the string. So in the robots.txt can I use 2 wildcards in the string to take out all of the URLs with that in it? So something like /_Q1. Will that pickup and block every URL with those characters in the string? Also, this is not directly of the root, but in a secondary directory, so .com/.../_Q1. So do I have to format the robots.txt as //_Q1* as it will be in the second folder or just using /_Q1 will pickup everything no matter what folder it is on? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seo1234560 -
Block an entire subdomain with robots.txt?
Is it possible to block an entire subdomain with robots.txt? I write for a blog that has their root domain as well as a subdomain pointing to the exact same IP. Getting rid of the option is not an option so I'd like to explore other options to avoid duplicate content. Any ideas?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kylesuss12