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.
-
Thanks so much for taking the time to respond.
I think I will add the https to WMT and remove them that way.
I will take a look through the .htaccess file and the creation of the ssl robots file. A while back, it seemed that Google was indexing a lot of my site as https and then the dropped it and went mainly back to http. I will get that sorted to make it clear.
-
Hi there
I'll start with question 2 first as it's a bit easier to answer. Robots.txt blocks the crawling of a page, but not necessarily indexing. Of course, if the page cannot be crawled it will be deindexed eventually anyway, but if you're getting that description for one of your URLs, Google has not been able to access it and will stop trying to. So that is usually enough, although if you want to remove it as well, you can by all means.
For question 1 - GWT is a bit awkward in the sense that it treats http and https versions of your site as different webmaster properties. Furthermore, if you want to remove a URL on your site, it will always prefix it with the http/https version of your site, no matter how you enter it.
If you added another WMT property that was https://www.yourdomain.com - you would be able to manage that domain as well and thus you would be able to remove any URLs under that prefix.
Incidentally, if you want to block all HTTPS pages from being accessed, you can do that with a special instruction in your htaccess file and robots txt. You can instruct the Googlebot and other bots to read a specific robots.txt file if they visit an HTTPS URL. To do that, you would first add this to your htaccess file:
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} ^on$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/robots.txt$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /robots_ssl.txt [L]This command basically says "if the URL has https, read the robots_ssl.txt file". You then upload a file called robots_ssl.txt to your root domain. In the txt file you just add:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /So now, if a bot reaches an https URL, it has to read the robots_ssl.txt file and upon reading that, they are denied access. That would prevent all of your https URLs from being indexed.
That might be useful to you, but if you go ahead and use it please take care to backup all your files in case anything goes wrong - your htaccess file is very important!
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
-
Https problem on google result.
Hello everyone. My problem is SSL certificate... Send all links to google, after google shows https link no problem. But a few minutes ago my home page link not have an SSL..
Technical SEO | | dalapayal
Please check this page : https://www.bodrumtransfermarket.com Where do I make a mistake? Thanks for all...0 -
Removing indexed pages
Hi all, this is my first post so be kind 🙂 - I have a one page Wordpress site that has the Yoast plugin installed. Unfortunately, when I first submitted the site's XML sitemap to the Google Search Console, I didn't check the Yoast settings and it submitted some example files from a theme demo I was using. These got indexed, which is a pain, so now I am trying to remove them. Originally I did a bunch of 301's but that didn't remove them from (at least not after about a month) - so now I have set up 410's - These also seem to not be working and I am wondering if it is because I re-submitted the sitemap with only the index page on it (as it is just a single page site) could that have now stopped Google indexing the original pages to actually see the 410's?
Technical SEO | | Jettynz
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.0 -
My SEO friend says my website is not being indexed by Google considering the keywords he has placed in the page and URL what does that mean?
My SEO friend says my website is not being indexed by Google considering the keywords he has placed in the page and URL what does that mean? We have added some text in the pages with keywords thats related the page
Technical SEO | | AlexisWithers0 -
How can i make Google to consider my News pages
How can i make Google to consider my News pages as News and place them in the Google News section? Is there some syntax i need to mention in all my news pages?
Technical SEO | | AlexisWithers0 -
Has anyone had problems with google webmaster tools verified sites
Hi, i have just been into google webmaster tools and i have noticed that five of my websites are no longer verified. i have tried putting the code back into the head and also i have tried verifying it through google analaystics but nothing is working can anyone let me know what has happened and if anyone has noticed this regards
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Quickest way to remove content from Google index?
We had some content on our own website indexed by Google and the content was changed later. But that content is still showing up in Google results. Of course because it was indexed. Its very important for us that content should not show up in Google. So how to remove that content quickly from Google Index? I know normally when it crawl again it will show new content. Google url removal tool or Google url fetch ? or anything else?
Technical SEO | | Personnel_Concept0 -
My backlinks do not register on your software but are registered on my google webmaster tools
Why are my back links not being recognized by any software other than google webmaster?
Technical SEO | | SteveK640 -
Google indexing directory folder listing page
Google somehow managed to find several of our images index folders and decided to include them into their index. Example: websitesite.com/category/images/ is what you'll see when doing a site:website.com search. So, I have two-part question: 1) Does this hurt our site's ability to rank in any way?
Technical SEO | | invision
Because all Google sees is just a directory listing page with a bunch of links to images in the folder. 2) If there could be any negative effect, what is the best way to get these folders out of Google's index?
I could block via robots.txt, but I'm afraid it will also block all the images in that folder from being indexed in Google image search. I could also turn off directory listing in cpanel / htaccess, but then that gives is a 403 forbidden. Will this hurt the site in anyway and would it prevent Google from indexing the images in the directory? Thanks,
Tony0