Have you at any time desired to stop Google from indexing a individual URL on your web site and displaying it in their research engine success internet pages (SERPs)? If you handle net internet sites extended ample, a day will likely come when you will need to know how to do this.

The 3 techniques most typically utilised to stop the indexing of a URL by Google are as follows:

Working with the rel=”nofollow” attribute on all anchor things made use of to website link to the web site to avoid the one-way links from remaining followed by the crawler.
Applying a disallow directive in the site’s robots.txt file to protect against the webpage from being crawled and indexed.
Making use of the meta robots tag with the information=”noindex” attribute to protect against the page from remaining indexed.
Even though the variances in the 3 strategies seem to be subtle at 1st look, the efficiency can differ drastically based on which strategy you select.

Making use of rel=”nofollow” to avert Google indexing

Several inexperienced website owners attempt to reduce Google from indexing a unique URL by making use of the rel=”nofollow” attribute on HTML anchor features. They add the attribute to each individual anchor element on their web site utilized to hyperlink to that URL.

Which includes a rel=”nofollow” attribute on a url stops Google’s crawler from following the connection which, in switch, prevents them from identifying, crawling, and indexing the focus on webpage. Though this system may operate as a small-term alternative, it is not a viable lengthy-time period solution.

The flaw with this method is that it assumes all inbound back links to the URL will include a rel=”nofollow” attribute. The webmaster, nonetheless, has no way to avoid other world wide web websites from linking to the URL with a adopted connection. So the chances that the URL will finally get crawled and indexed making use of this approach is very substantial.

Utilizing robots.txt to avoid Google indexing

Another widespread approach utilised to reduce the indexing of a URL by Google is to use the robots.txt file. A disallow directive can be included to the robots.txt file for the URL in question. Google’s crawler will honor the directive which will prevent the page from getting crawled and indexed. In google inverted index , nevertheless, the URL can still look in the SERPs.

Occasionally Google will exhibit a URL in their SERPs while they have in no way indexed the contents of that page. If sufficient world wide web internet sites connection to the URL then Google can often infer the topic of the website page from the url text of those people inbound one-way links. As a end result they will show the URL in the SERPs for associated queries. Although using a disallow directive in the robots.txt file will reduce Google from crawling and indexing a URL, it does not assure that the URL will by no means surface in the SERPs.

Making use of the meta robots tag to prevent Google indexing

If you need to have to stop Google from indexing a URL even though also stopping that URL from remaining displayed in the SERPs then the most effective approach is to use a meta robots tag with a content=”noindex” attribute within the head factor of the world wide web page. Of class, for Google to truly see this meta robots tag they will need to initially be equipped to learn and crawl the website page, so do not block the URL with robots.txt. When Google crawls the webpage and discovers the meta robots noindex tag, they will flag the URL so that it will in no way be proven in the SERPs. This is the most successful way to stop Google from indexing a URL and exhibiting it in their research benefits.