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.
Domain Masking SEO Impact
-
I hope I am explaining this correctly. If I need to provide any clarity please feel free to ask. We currently use a domain mask on an external platform that points back to our site. We are a non-profit and the external site allows users to create peer-to peer fundraisers that benefit our ministry. Currently we get many meta issues related to this site as well as broken links when fundraisers expire etc. We do not have a need to rank for the information from this site. Is there a way to index these pages so that they are not a part of the search engine site crawls as it relates to our site?
-
Glad to be of service!
-
Thank you for this response. This helps me a ton as I discuss with our web team on the best way to set the coding for the site so that we are not registering errors but also not hurting the actual site in any way.
-
This is a good idea, but Robots.txt stops pages being crawled - it doesn't stop pages being indexed. For that you need to fire the Meta No-Index directive on the affected URLs. If you can't edit their code you can fire the same directive through the HTTP header via X-Robots. On that linked post, you'll need to scroll down a little. If possible you could also alter those URLs to serve status code 410 (gone) so that Google knows, those URLs aren't really on your site
Note that you'll need to make the changes on the 'affected' site, not the site which is the 'source' of the masked pages / data. If you make the changes there, that site will have all the Google traffic killed as well (and they'll probably want to punch you!)
I recommend that you lead with hard signals and directives which stop Google indexing the pages on the 'affected' site (which is receiving the masked URLs / content and doesn't want them to rank). Once the pages fall out of Google's index, then you swoop in behind and put the robots.txt stuff in to stop them ever coming back
-
Depends on the CMS you use. Many CMS's can click a quick button to not index in Google search.
If that isnt an option, do it through a robots.txt file in webmaster tools.
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
-
Breadcrumbs on Mobile How important are they for SEO?
Due to Poor unsightly look of breadcrumbs and the space it takes up above the fold we only employ breadcrumbs on our desktop version. Breadcrumbs are hidden from view on mobile version. However as mobile first indexing is now in play what technical SEO impacts will this have? one thing that comes to mind is crawling deeper pages where breadcrumbs made them accessible in less than 3 link clicks? But i am unsure now of the impacts of not having breadcrumbs visible for mobile version of our site.
Technical SEO | | oceanstorm0 -
Schema for Banks and SEO
I'm researching Schema opportunities for a bank, but besides the shema markup available today (like bankorcreditunion) and developments with FIBO, I can find no answer as to the effect of tagging interest rates and such in terms of SERP/CTR performance or visibility. Does anyone have a case study to share or some insight on the matter?
Technical SEO | | Netsociety0 -
SEO-impact of mouseover text on header pictures
Hi, what do you reckon of taking away the mouseover effect on the header pictures seen on www.viventura.de/reisen/peru?
Technical SEO | | viventuraSEO
We are thinking of eliminating the mouseover text to make User Experience even better but are worrying that our ranking might go down when doing so. Any experiences, any help is highly appreciated!
Thanks, Benno0 -
Correct linking to the /index of a site and subfolders: what's the best practice? link to: domain.com/ or domain.com/index.html ?
Dear all, starting with my .htaccess file: RewriteEngine On
Technical SEO | | inlinear
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.inlinear.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://inlinear.com/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^./index.html
RewriteRule ^(.)index.html$ http://inlinear.com/ [R=301,L] 1. I redirect all URL-requests with www. to the non www-version...
2. all requests with "index.html" will be redirected to "domain.com/" My questions are: A) When linking from a page to my frontpage (home) the best practice is?: "http://domain.com/" the best and NOT: "http://domain.com/index.php" B) When linking to the index of a subfolder "http://domain.com/products/index.php" I should link also to: "http://domain.com/products/" and not put also the index.php..., right? C) When I define the canonical ULR, should I also define it just: "http://domain.com/products/" or in this case I should link to the definite file: "http://domain.com/products**/index.php**" Is A) B) the best practice? and C) ? Thanks for all replies! 🙂
Holger0 -
Localized domains and duplicate content
Hey guys, In my company we are launching a new website and there's an issue it's been bothering me for a while. I'm sure you guys can help me out. I already have a website, let's say ABC.com I'm preparing a localized version of that website for the uk so we'll launch ABC.co.uk Basically the websites are going to be exactly the same with the difference of the homepage. They have a slightly different proposition. Using GeoIP I will redirect the UK traffic to ABC.co.uk and the rest of the traffic will still visit .com website. May google penalize this? The site itself it will be almost the same but the homepage. This may count as duplicate content even if I'm geo-targeting different regions so they will never overlap. Thanks in advance for you advice
Technical SEO | | fabrizzio0 -
Transfer a Main Domain to a Sub-Domain
My IT department tells me they want to transfer my main site domain, which has been in existence since 1999 as an e-commerce site (maindomain.com) to a sub-domain (www2.maindomain.com) or a completely new domain (newdomain.net). This is because we are launching a new website and B2C e-commerce engine, but we still have to maintain the legacy B2B e-commerce engine which contains hard-coded URLs, and both systems can't use the same domain. I've been researching the issue across SEOmoz, but I haven't come across this exact type of scenario (mostly I've seen a sub-domain to new domain). I see major problems with their proposal, including negative SEO impact, loss of domain authority/ranking and issues with branding. Does anyone know the exact type of impact I can expect to see in this scenario and specific steps I should go about to minimize the impact? Btw, I will be using Danny Dover's guide on properly moving domains where appropriate. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | AscendLearning0 -
How to increase your Domain Authority
Hi Guys, Can someone please provide some pointers on how to best increase your Domain Authority?? Thanks Gareth
Technical SEO | | GAZ090 -
Iframes & SEO
I've got a client that wants a site with all content in iFrames. They saw another site they liked & asked if we could do it. Of course we can technically. How big a negative hit would they take with SEO? Is there anything we can do to mitigate it, such as redirects, etc? Thanks for the help!
Technical SEO | | wcksmith0