Have you ever wanted to avoid Google from indexing a particular URL on your net site and displaying it in their lookup motor outcomes pages (SERPs)? If you control website web-sites long ample, a day will probably occur when you need to know how to do this.

The a few methods most normally used to prevent the indexing of a URL by Google are as follows:

Using the rel=”nofollow” attribute on all anchor factors utilized to url to the page to reduce the backlinks from staying adopted by the crawler.
Applying a disallow directive in the site’s robots.txt file to reduce the website page from becoming crawled and indexed.
Employing the meta robots tag with the content material=”noindex” attribute to prevent the website page from currently being indexed.
While the variations in the a few ways appear to be delicate at first glance, the effectiveness can fluctuate greatly based on which process you choose.

Applying rel=”nofollow” to stop Google indexing

Many inexperienced website owners attempt to protect against Google from indexing a unique URL by working with the rel=”nofollow” attribute on HTML anchor components. They increase the attribute to each and every anchor factor on their web page made use of to connection to that URL.

Which includes a rel=”nofollow” attribute on a hyperlink stops Google’s crawler from following the backlink which, in flip, stops them from finding, crawling, and indexing the focus on page. Though this approach could possibly do the job as a quick-term remedy, it is not a feasible long-term resolution.

The flaw with this strategy is that it assumes all inbound backlinks to the URL will include a rel=”nofollow” attribute. The webmaster, nevertheless, has no way to stop other world-wide-web sites from linking to the URL with a followed backlink. So the likelihood that the URL will eventually get crawled and indexed utilizing this technique is quite superior.

Making use of robots.txt to stop Google indexing

An additional prevalent technique made use of to protect against the indexing of a URL by Google is to use the robots.txt file. A disallow directive can be added to the robots.txt file for the URL in query. Google’s crawler will honor the directive which will prevent the website page from getting crawled and indexed. In some scenarios, nevertheless, the URL can nonetheless show up in the SERPs.

Often Google will show a URL in their SERPs however they have in no way indexed the contents of that website page. If keyword tracker api than enough world-wide-web sites backlink to the URL then Google can generally infer the subject matter of the webpage from the link text of individuals inbound hyperlinks. As a outcome they will clearly show the URL in the SERPs for linked queries. While utilizing a disallow directive in the robots.txt file will avert Google from crawling and indexing a URL, it does not assurance that the URL will by no means seem in the SERPs.

Applying the meta robots tag to prevent Google indexing

If you want to reduce Google from indexing a URL whilst also stopping that URL from remaining exhibited in the SERPs then the most successful tactic is to use a meta robots tag with a written content=”noindex” attribute inside the head component of the world wide web web site. Of training course, for Google to really see this meta robots tag they need to have to first be ready to find and crawl the website page, so do not block the URL with robots.txt. When Google crawls the site and discovers the meta robots noindex tag, they will flag the URL so that it will never be demonstrated in the SERPs. This is the most successful way to avoid Google from indexing a URL and exhibiting it in their lookup benefits.