Some bots excluded from crawling client's domain
-
Hi all!
My client is in healthcare in the US and for HIPAA reasons, blocks traffic from most international sources.
a. I don't think this is good for SEO
b. The site won't allow Moz bot or Screaming Frog bot to crawl it. It's so frustrating.
We can't figure out what mechanism they are utilizing to execute this. Any help as we start down the rabbit hole to remedy is much appreciated.
thank you!
-
The main reason it's not good is that Google crawl from different data-centers around the world. So one day they may think the site is up, then the next they may think the site is gone and down
Typically you use a user-agent lance to pierce these kinds of setups. Screaming Frog for example, you can pre-select from a variety of user-agents (including 'googlebot' and Chrome) but you can also author or write your own user-agent
Write a long one that looks like an encryption key. Tell your client the user agent you have defined, let them create and exemption for it within their spam-defense system. Insert the user-agent (which no one else has or uses) into Screaming Frog, use it to allow the crawler to pierce the defense grid
Typically you would want to exempt 'Googlebot' (as a user agent) from these defense systems, but it comes with a risk. Anyone with basic scripting knowledge or who knows how to install Chrome extensions, can alter the user-agent of their script (or web browser, it's under the user's control) with ease and it is widely known that many sites make an exception for 'Googlebot' - thus it becomes a common vulnerability. For example, lots of publishers create URLs which Google can access and index, yet if you are a bog standard user they ask you to turn off ad-blockers or pay a fee
Download the Chrome User-Agent extension, set your user-agent to "googlebot" and sail right through. Not ideal from a defense perspective
For this reason I have often wished (and I am really hoping someone from Google might be reading) that in Search Console, you could tell Google a custom user-agent string and give it to them. You could then exempt that, safe in the knowledge that no one else knows it, and Google would use your own custom string to identify themselves when accessing your site and content. Then everyone could be safe, indexable and happy
We're not there yet
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
-
No: 'noindex' detected in 'robots' meta tag
Pages on my site show No: 'noindex' detected in 'robots' meta tag. However, when I inspect the pages html, it does not show noindex. In fact, it shows index, follow. Majority of pages show the error and are not indexed by Google...Not sure why this is happening. The page below in search console shows the error above...
Technical SEO | | Sean_White_Consult0 -
Changed domains, saw significant drop in domain authority
Hello, A little over a month ago we switched our domain from A to B. The original was .com and the new one is at a .tech for good measure. We have meticulously done 301 redirects page by page but there has been a massive drop in traffic and I checked here to see that we've gone from a 30 domain authority to a 9. The company is a few months over 1 year old, but we're really looking at traffic accumulated in just about 8 months for the old domain. Is there any way to recover some of the old juice in this one other than the re-directs? Our number of backlinks have also severely dropped despite re-directs.
Technical SEO | | SteveSaf0 -
Geo ip filtering / Subdomain can't be crawled
My client has "load balancing" site traffic in the following way: domain: www.example.com traffic from US IP redirected to usa.example.com traffic from non-US IP redirected to www2.example.com The reason for doing this is that site contents on the www2 contains herbal medicine info banned by FDA."usa.example.com" is a "cleaned" site. Using HK IP, when I google an Eng keyword, I can see that www.example.com is indexed. When googling a Chi keyword, nothing is indexed - neither the domain or www2 subdomain. From Google Search Console, it shows a Dell Sonicwall geo ip filtering alert for www2 (Connection initiated from country: United States). GSC data also confirms that www2 has never been indexed by Google. Questions: Is geo ip filtering the very reason why www2 isn't indexed? What should I do in order to get www2 to be indexed? Thanks guys!
Technical SEO | | irene7890 -
Is content on widget bar less 'seo important' than main content?
hi, i wonder if content on widget bar less 'seo important' than main content.. i mean, is better to place content and links on main cotent than on wordpress widget bar? What are the pros and cons? tx!
Technical SEO | | Dreamrealemedia0 -
100's of Footer Links... what is the safe play?
Hello, One of my clients wants to know what you guys think is the best solution. He sells 100's of templates a month that have a footer link on it pointing to our homepage. Anchor links are "keyword" & "Brand Name" Some are different than others. Do we update the templates so those are no-follow links in the footer? Do we just make all the links to: Brand Name and have them follow? I understand Brand Name is the business name but I am also afraid that Brand name is so close to the money making keyword in the industry and Google might think we are trying to game the system. Looking for your expert opinions!
Technical SEO | | MoosaHemani0 -
SEOMoz is indicating I have 40 pages with duplicate content, yet it doesn't list the URL's of the pages???
When I look at the Errors and Warnings on my Campaign Overview, I have a lot of "duplicate content" errors. When I view the errors/warnings SEOMoz indicates the number of pages with duplicate content, yet when I go to view them the subsequent page says no pages were found... Any ideas are greatly welcomed! Thanks Marty K.
Technical SEO | | MartinKlausmeier0 -
Can someone break down 'page level link metrics' for me?
Sorry for the, again, basic question - can someone define page level link metrics for me?
Technical SEO | | Benj250 -
Google shows the wrong domain for client's homepage
Whenever the homepage of my client's homepage appears in Google results, the search engine is not showing our URL as our domain, but instead a partner domain that is linking to us. (The correct title and meta description of our homepage is showing.) I believe this is caused by the partner website (with a much higher pank rank) linking to our homepage from their footer to a URL with it's own domain that 302 redirects to our homepage. Example: Link: http://www.partnerwebsite.com/?ad2203 302 redirects to: http://www.clientwebsite.com/?moreadtracking The simple fix would be for the client to ask for removal of the 302 hijacking link - but they are uncomfortable with this request since they had requested it prior, and their relationship is not the best. Is there any other way to fix this?
Technical SEO | | Conor_OShea_ETUS0