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.
Duplicate content issue: staging urls has been indexed and need to know how to remove it from the serps
-
duplicate content issue: staging url has been indexed by google ( many pages) and need to know how to remove them from the serps.
Bing sees the staging url as moved permanently
Google sees the staging urls (240 results) and redirects to the correct url Should I be concerned about duplicate content and request Google to remove the staging url removed
Thanks Guys
-
Thanks for helping Malika! To clarify for other readers, blocking in robots.txt after the pages have been indexed will actually prevent them from being removed from the index with a meta noindex tag, since Google won't be able to crawl the pages to see the noindex tag.
If staging URLs have been indexed already (and assuming they still need to exist), here's the steps I would take:
- Add meta noindex tags to every staging URLs
- If urgent, also do a URL removal request in Webmaster Tools (but this is usually not needed)
- Wait until the staging URLs are noindexed - you can check periodically by doing site: searches in Google.
- Only after they are noindexed, block Search Engines from crawling them with the robots.txt file.
-
Generally you'll want to hide your staging site from search engines and as Malika mentioned, the best way to do this is via robots.txt.
That lets you essentially set a rule stating that no crawlers are to access anything on that domain. Beyond that, nothing else is really relevant; if crawlers can't see your site, it doesn't matter what you do with it! You don't even need to worry about 301 redirects once this is done.
Once you apply that change in robots.txt, you may still see your staging site indexed for a little while (anywhere from hours to a couple of months) but this is normal and it will drop away soon enough.
Search engines are pretty good at determining which is the real site these days anyway!
-
Thanks for your suggestions Peter and Malika,
By the wayt The staging site had it's own url..
I think I need help with the canonical stuff, as I am not really sure how to use it.
-
Quick way to remove staging url is sending HTTP error 410 as result.
Other is to use in SearchConsole Remove URLs function https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/url-removalAbout duplicate content - you must see actual canonical. If on stage URL there is canonical point to normal site then you shouldn't hesitating. But if staging and normal point to different URLs then you can see some algo filter.
-
I am assuming that these pages don't hold any authority or backlinks at all. You can simply delete these pages (if the purposes of these pages has been solved.
Or if you still need these pages live, use Robots.txt file to make these pages (or the whole subdomain/directory they are sitting as disallowed, no-index)
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
-
Page Indexing without content
Hello. I have a problem of page indexing without content. I have website in 3 different languages and 2 of the pages are indexing just fine, but one language page (the most important one) is indexing without content. When searching using site: page comes up, but when searching unique keywords for which I should rank 100% nothing comes up. This page was indexing just fine and the problem arose couple of days ago after google update finished. Looking further, the problem is language related and every page in the given language that is newly indexed has this problem, while pages that were last crawled around one week ago are just fine. Has anyone ran into this type of problem?
Technical SEO | | AtuliSulava1 -
URLs dropping from index (Crawled, currently not indexed)
I've noticed that some of our URLs have recently dropped completely out of Google's index. When carrying out a URL inspection in GSC, it comes up with 'Crawled, currently not indexed'. Strangely, I've also noticed that under referring page it says 'None detected', which is definitely not the case. I wonder if it could be something to do with the following? https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ranking-index-drop-30192.html - It seems to be a bug affecting quite a few people. Here are a few examples of the URLs that have gone missing: https://www.ihasco.co.uk/courses/detail/sexual-harassment-awareness-training https://www.ihasco.co.uk/courses/detail/conflict-resolution-training https://www.ihasco.co.uk/courses/detail/prevent-duty-training Any help here would be massively appreciated!
Technical SEO | | iHasco0 -
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 -
Car Dealership website - Duplicate Page Content Issues
Hi, I am currently working on a large car dealership website. I have just had a Moz crawl through and its flagging a lot of duplicate page content issues, these are mostly for used car pages. How can I get round this as the site stocks many of the same car, model, colour, age, millage etc. Only unique thing about them is the reg plate. How do I get past this duplicate issue if all the info is relatively the same? Anyone experienced this issue when working on a car dealership website? Thank you.
Technical SEO | | karl621 -
Vanity URLs are being indexed in Google
We are currently using vanity URLs to track offline marketing, the vanity URL is structured as www.clientdomain.com/publication, this URL then is 302 redirected to the actual URL on the website not a custom landing page. The resulting redirected URL looks like: www.clientdomain.com/xyzpage?utm_source=print&utm_medium=print&utm_campaign=printcampaign. We have started to notice that some of the vanity URLs are being indexed in Google search. To prevent this from happening should we be using a 301 redirect instead of a 302 and will the Google index ignore the utm parameters in the URL that is being 301 redirect to? If not, any suggestions on how to handle? Thanks,
Technical SEO | | seogirl221 -
Duplicate Content Issues on Product Pages
Hi guys Just keen to gauge your opinion on a quandary that has been bugging me for a while now. I work on an ecommerce website that sells around 20,000 products. A lot of the product SKUs are exactly the same in terms of how they work and what they offer the customer. Often it is 1 variable that changes. For example, the product may be available in 200 different sizes and 2 colours (therefore 400 SKUs available to purchase). Theese SKUs have been uploaded to the website as individual entires so that the customer can purchase them, with the only difference between the listings likely to be key signifiers such as colour, size, price, part number etc. Moz has flagged these pages up as duplicate content. Now I have worked on websites long enough now to know that duplicate content is never good from an SEO perspective, but I am struggling to work out an effective way in which I can display such a large number of almost identical products without falling foul of the duplicate content issue. If you wouldnt mind sharing any ideas or approaches that have been taken by you guys that would be great!
Technical SEO | | DHS_SH0 -
Home Page .index.htm and .com Duplicate Page Content/Title
I have been whittling away at the duplicate content on my clients' sites, thanks to SEOmoz's pro report, and have been getting push back from the account manager at register.com (the site was built here and the owner doesn't want to move it). He says these are the exact same page and he can't access one to redirect to the other. Any suggestions? The SEOmoz report says there is duplicate content on both these urls: Durango Mountain Biking | Durango Mountain Resort - Cascade Village http://www.cascadevillagehotel.com/index.htm Durango Mountain Biking | Durango Mountain Resort - Cascade Village http://www.cascadevillagehotel.com/ Your help is greatly appreciated! Sheryl
Technical SEO | | TOMMarketingLtd.0 -
Duplicate Content issue
I have been asked to review an old website to an identify opportunities for increasing search engine traffic. Whilst reviewing the site I came across a strange loop. On each page there is a link to printer friendly version: http://www.websitename.co.uk/index.php?pageid=7&printfriendly=yes That page also has a link to a printer friendly version http://www.websitename.co.uk/index.php?pageid=7&printfriendly=yes&printfriendly=yes and so on and so on....... Some of these pages are being included in Google's index. I appreciate that this can't be a good thing, however, I am not 100% sure as to the extent to which it is a bad thing and the priority that should be given to getting it sorted. Just wandering what views people have on the issues this may cause?
Technical SEO | | CPLDistribution0