Will a Robots.txt 'disallow' of a directory, keep Google from seeing 301 redirects for pages/files within the directory?
-
Hi- I have a client that had thousands of dynamic php pages indexed by Google that shouldn't have been. He has since blocked these php pages via robots.txt disallow. Unfortunately, many of those php pages were linked to by high quality sites mulitiple times (instead of the static urls) before he put up the php 'disallow'.
If we create 301 redirects for some of these php URLs that area still showing high value backlinks and send them to the correct static URLs, will Google even see these 301 redirects and pass link value to the proper static URLs? Or will the robots.txt keep Google away and we lose all these high quality backlinks? I guess the same question applies if we use the canonical tag instead of the 301. Will the robots.txt keep Google from seeing the canonical tags on the php pages?
Thanks very much,
V
-
No problem
-
Hello Dmitrii,
Yes, that clarifies things perfectly. Thanks very much for your explanation. And I missed this particular WBF, so I will give it a close look as well.
Thanks again for your quick help.
-
Hello, my friend.
You should realize how exactly htaccess' 301 redirects work. They are server side commands/operations. So, when bots request a page, they wait until server response. In case of 301s - they get response "Don't go here, go there". Now, they also may get response from robots.txt saying "you're not allowed to look at the contents of this file/directory", however this will not prevent the server response. That's why sometimes you can see indexed pages, which are saying "blocked by robots". They are indexed though.
Now, in case of canonical links you are correct, since canonical is IN the content of the page, then robots won't be able to read it, therefore won't be able to be told that there is a canonical page.
There is a recent WBF on this subject - https://moz.com/blog/controlling-search-engine-crawlers-for-better-indexation-and-rankings-whiteboard-friday
Hope this clarifies some things.
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
-
Top Landing Page has disappeared from Google Search Console but still shows at the top of Google
Hi, One of the top landing pages in my website has disappeared from GSC Search Analytics results. But I do get a good traffic from that page until now. What might be the reason for GSC to stop showing it on the results?
Technical SEO | | eduapps0 -
Sudden decrease in indexed AMP pages after 8/1/16 update
After the AMP update on 8/1/16, the number of AMP pages indexed suddenly dropped by about 50% and it's crushing our search traffic- I haven't been able to find any documentation on any changes to look out for and why we are getting a penalty- any advice or something I should look out for?
Technical SEO | | nystromandy0 -
Is 301 redirect replacing or adding PA on a page ?
Hello Moz community, I am re-structuring information architecture on a website. The homepage targets keyword A
Technical SEO | | Sindicic_Alexis
There is a page /page-on-B/ that targets keyword B
There is also an older page /page-on-kinda-B/ that targets a keyword which is really close to B ( i think they should have been worked on the same page...) I want to re-optimise the homepage on keyword B because i know it is worth the effort. If i re-write the homepage to talk about B and do a 301 redirect of : /page-on-B/
/page-on-kinda-B/ to the homepage is it going to add page authority to the homepage ? is it the right way to proceed ?
Thanks for your support !0 -
3,511 Pages Indexed and 3,331 Pages Blocked by Robots
Morning, So I checked our site's index status on WMT, and I'm being told that Google is indexing 3,511 pages and the robots are blocking 3,331. This seems slightly odd as we're only disallowing 24 pages on the robots.txt file. In light of this, I have the following queries: Do these figures mean that Google is indexing 3,511 pages and blocking 3,331 other pages? Or does it mean that it's blocking 3,331 pages of the 3,511 indexed? As there are only 24 URLs being disallowed on robots.text, why are 3,331 pages being blocked? Will these be variations of the URLs we've submitted? Currently, we don't have a sitemap. I know, I know, it's pretty unforgivable but the old one didn't really work and the developers are working on the new one. Once submitted, will this help? I think I know the answer to this, but is there any way to ascertain which pages are being blocked? Thanks in advance! Lewis
Technical SEO | | PeaSoupDigital0 -
Should you change Temporary redirects 302's to a 301 even if page is not important/intended for ranking ?
Hi Whilst i appreciate its best practice to 301 redirect permanently moved pages, what if the page is say a login page or other page you not really interested in ranking or transferring juice to ? is it still important/best practice to do so simply because the page has permanently moved hence should still be a 301 even though you don't really want it to rank ? cheers dan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence1 -
How many times robots.txt gets visited by crawlers, especially Google?
Hi, Do you know if there's any way to track how often robots.txt file has been crawled? I know we can check when is the latest downloaded from webmaster tool, but I actually want to know if they download every time crawlers visit any page on the site (e.g. hundreds of thousands of times every day), or less. thanks...
Technical SEO | | linklater0 -
What if my host doesn't have the 301 redirect feature?
Ok, So i need to do a 301 redirect but my host doesn't have the feature with htaccess. I currently use yahoo. What are my options?
Technical SEO | | bronxpad0 -
Can I redirect when Google is showing these as 2 different pages?
Hi Guys, Google webmaster is showing 1000 duplicate title tags because its picking up our pages like this. How can I correct this? Please explain in detail please. Thank You Tim /store/ICICLES_NO_7_CLEAR_WITH_PINK_NUBBY//store/ICICLES_NO_7_CLEAR_WITH_PINK_NUBBY
Technical SEO | | fasctimseo0