No index on subdomains
-
Hi,
We have a subdomain that is appearing in the search results - I want to hide this as it looks really bad. If I were to add the no index tag to the sub domain would URL would this affect the whole domain or just that sub domain?
The main domain is vitally important - it is just that sub domain I need to hide.
Many thanks
-
Andy and Alan covered what you need to do. One more thing to keep in mind, check the traffic, you don't want to lose those spot in the SERPS. You might want to consider fixing up the subdomain if it gets you conversions and traffic.
-
does the root domain link to the subdomain?
if so then noindex,follow the pages in the subdomain, this will allow link juice to flow back out of the subdomain.
any links pointing to a nofollow page will waste their link juice -
Hi Nicholas,
You are fine noindexing the subdomain. However, you will need to create a new robots.txt file and place it in the subdomain root for it to work.
-Andy
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
-
Pages not indexable?
Hello, I've been trying to find out why Google Search Console finds these pages non-indexable: https://www.visitflorida.com/en-us/eat-drink.html https://www.visitflorida.com/en-us/florida-beaches/beach-finder.html Moz and SEMrush both crawl the pages and show no errors but GSC comes back with, "blocked by robots.txt" but I've confirmed it is not. Anyone have any thoughts? 6AYn1TL
Technical SEO | | KenSchaefer0 -
Google is indexing bad URLS
Hi All, The site I am working on is built on Wordpress. The plugin Revolution Slider was downloaded. While no longer utilized, it still remained on the site for some time. This plugin began creating hundreds of URLs containing nothing but code on the page. I noticed these URLs were being indexed by Google. The URLs follow the structure: www.mysite.com/wp-content/uploads/revslider/templates/this-part-changes/ I have done the following to prevent these URLs from being created & indexed: 1. Added a directive in my Htaccess to 404 all of these URLs 2. Blocked /wp-content/uploads/revslider/ in my robots.txt 3. Manually de-inedex each URL using the GSC tool 4. Deleted the plugin However, new URLs still appear in Google's index, despite being blocked by robots.txt and resolving to a 404. Can anyone suggest any next steps? I Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Tom3_150 -
Sudden Indexation of "Index of /wp-content/uploads/"
Hi all, I have suddenly noticed a massive jump in indexed pages. After performing a "site:" search, it was revealed that the sudden jump was due to the indexation of many pages beginning with the serp title "Index of /wp-content/uploads/" for many uploaded pieces of content & plugins. This has appeared approximately one month after switching to https. I have also noticed a decline in Bing rankings. Does anyone know what is causing/how to fix this? To be clear, these pages are **not **normal /wp-content/uploads/ but rather "index of" pages, being included in Google. Thank you.
Technical SEO | | Tom3_150 -
Google indexes page elements
Hello We face this problem that Google indexes page elements from WordPress as single pages. How can we prevent these elements from being indexed separately and being displayed in the search results? For example this project: www.rovana.be When scrolling down the search results, there are a lot of elements that are indexed separately. When clicking on the link, this is wat we see (see attachements) Does anyone have experience with this way of indexing and how can we solve this problem? Thanks! LlAWG4w.png C7XDDYS.png gVroomx.png
Technical SEO | | conversal0 -
SSL for subdomain is good or bad?
Hello, We have SSL certificate for our domain only for *.website.com, And now, we have few subdomains, as you know, we have two choices: 1. Using HTTPS for subdomain https://me.website.com, while it has problem with https://www.me.website.com (SSL error) 2. Using HTTP for subdomain, which has www and non-www with redirects. Which one is good for us?
Technical SEO | | Anetwork0 -
De-indexed from Google
Hi Search Experts! We are just launching a new site for a client with a completely new URL. The client can not provide any access details for their existing site. Any ideas how can we get the existing site de-indexed from Google? Thanks guys!
Technical SEO | | rikmon0 -
Index inactive mobile site?
Hi, I have a question wrt Mobile version of a site. Previously, we had a mobile site which is no longer active and there are possibilities of resurrecting it in future, so we have a 302 redirect which points to the homepage (desktop version). Currently, the mobile site is indexed by the search engines. To avoid the duplicate content issue, is it recommended to use robots.txt and block the spiders from mobile content or apply 301 redirect until the mobile site is up and running, OR continue with the 302 redirect. Any suggestions will be helpful. Thanks,
Technical SEO | | RaksG0 -
Getting images indexed in the SERPS
Good Afternoon form 13 degrees C totally Sunny Wetherby UK 🙂 Am i right in thinking that the only way to get images appearing like this in your serps: http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/innovia-merchant-immages-serpscopy.jpg is to be hooked up to Google Merchant? Which kind of means if the sight your working on has no images then this type of enhancement is out of bounds? Thanks in advance, David
Technical SEO | | Nightwing0