ASSESSMENT
There are times when you may need to exclude WordPress content from showing up in your Google results. Is there a way that you can do this?
There is — indexing. This is a word that predominately was used at the back of books, but now with the emergence of Google, it’s got a completely different meaning.
Indexing in search engines, especially Google, is vital for web visibility. For Google, indexing means adding new web pages – whether documents, images, or videos – to its database, known as Google’s index. Your web pages need to be in Google’s index to appear in search results. Google achieves this through "spiders" or "crawlers" that visit sites, ignoring some information while carefully indexing others. Indexing allows search engines to organize and retrieve specific pieces of content from billions of sites.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays a key role in this process. With Google Console Optimization tools, website owners can monitor and improve their indexing, helping their pages rank well. Ranking higher on Google can lead to more visitors and, subsequently, more conversions and sales. By using targeted keywords, your content becomes more discoverable and engaging to users.
While SEO and Google’s algorithms evolve, indexing remains essential for visibility. Integrating keywords strategically in your content is crucial, as this aids Google in identifying relevant phrases and delivering the most relevant content to users. Tools like Grammarly also improve readability, contributing to your SEO strategy. Many services, including Trust My Paper, BestEssay.Education, and Grab My Essay, offer additional content assistance to ensure effective keyword integration and optimized readability for improved search rankings.
For comprehensive digital strategies, Ksoft Technologies offers a suite of tools and techniques for Google Console Optimization and effective SEO, helping businesses to expand their digital footprint and connect with wider audiences.
You might be wondering how all of this is relevant. Indexing also plays a crucial part in blocking individual pages.
One of the main reasons why people seek to stop indexing content is a result of security flaws.
In the early 2000s, hackers found their way into credit card information, from websites and simple search queries.
There have also been rumors that simple exploits to Google search, could expose the confidential and private information of individuals and businesses.
Obviously, hacks do happen online. We’re constantly reminded to be safe, and keep all information incredible secure.
In short, if you want to exclude WordPress from your site, you need to dive into indexing.
Below are the best ways that you can hide a WordPress page from Google, without affecting the SEO of your site.
Essentially, Robots.txt is a file that’s located at the root of your site. It provides Google (and any other search engine) with instructions on what to crawl, and what they shouldn’t crawl.
Robots.txt is predominately used to control crawling traffic. However, it can also prevent various images from appearing in Google search results.
A robots.txt file, on a standard WordPress site, would look like this:
“User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-includes/”
With this, you can also keep bots away from any specific digital files that you may have. For instance, MP4s, JPEGs, and PDFs – this ensures your privacy and safety is secure.
This would look something a bit like this, for PDF files:
“User-agent: *
Disallow: /pdfs/ # Block the /pdfs/directory.
Disallow: *.pdf$ # Block pdf files from all bots.”
The above examples will exclude your content from simply being indexed. They will still be accessible for somebody who knows where and how to look.
If you want to make it so that your files are entirely private, and nobody can access them, you will need to find another method. This can be achieved with content restriction plugins.
For the most part, Robots.txt is a great, easy option which anybody can achieve. It adds a level of security to your site and will help exclude some pages.
However, this is not a reliable way to block confident or sensitive files. They can only instruct well-behaved crawlers – some bots could ignore its instructions.
Not to mention, of the content and pages that you block, is linked from other sources, search engines can still find it.
Arguably, this is a much more reliable option for blocking search indexing. In comparison to robots.txt, this method is placed in thesection of your website – arguably the most crucial part.It’s a simple HTML tag that mirrors the following:
“
Any page with this instruction placed in the header, will not appear on Google search results. You can also build
from this, and instruct web crawlers not to crawl links or offer translations.
You can also instruct multiple
crawlers, which requires a different HTML tag, based on your preferences.
To add this code to your website, you
need to edit the HTML of your WordPress theme. In the functions.php, you can insert a no-index meta tag or anything
else that you want.
If this isn’t a reliable option for you, there’s also the SEO plugin route.
“You can
control your page’s visibility with Yoast SEO, which will ultimately change the meta tags for you. This is many
people’s favorite option. It’s easy to do and is much more useful than robots.txt.” Jeremy Fell, an SEO specialist
at Studicus.
The above options don’t solve all your problems, though. While they may prevent your private documents and sensitive
data from appearing on Google search results, any users with a link can still access it.
Many people make the
mistake of thinking that they’ve made the appropriate steps, and fail to do the las step – authentication.
For
security purposes, it’s essential that you set up page authentication with a username and password.
You should
also consider a role access permission.
For pages that may have personal profiles, staff pages, or sensitive data – you don’t want anonymous users to access
this. Regardless of who they may be. It’s not worth the risk.
By taking steps to instruct crawlers, you’re
preventing your WordPress site from being indexed. However, if someone manages to find your pages – they will be
asked for credentials before they can look at any content.
The good news is, this is really easy to do with
WordPress. You simply have to set the visibility of the post or pages to “password-protected.”
From here, you can
create a password, and your site becomes much more secure. You can also consider adding WordPress plugins for extra
security.
That being said, for comprehensive protection of documents, you should consider hiring a service, or
professional security.
The goal for the majority of websites is to rank high. However, many business owners and bloggers alike are not considering what search engines can see.
