WordPress: Noindex specific posts and pages!
11 October 2007
41 comments, leave your own!
The single most requested feature for my robots meta plugin was to have the ability to add noindex tags to specific posts and pages from within the write post and write page admin screens. I've now fixed that, with the release of version 2.0 of this plugin!
For those that have not updated since 1.4: you can now also edit the robots.txt and .htaccess from within the Robots Meta admin page.
So I'd say: download the new version, and play with it!
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Seems like you should also have the option of not adding any tags, or have I missed something?
if you do "index,follow" it will not add any, as that's the default.
I am running WordPress 2.2.3 and get the following error which prevents posts and pages from being saved.
WordPress database error: [Unknown column 'robotsmeta' in 'field list']
UPDATE wp_posts SET robotsmeta = 'index,follow' WHERE ID = 65
I have been using the All-In-One plugin for a few months.
What I like about your plugin is that I can prevent Subpages of the homepage from being indexed.
Hi John,
I'd try disabling and then enabling the plugin, and see if the problem still occurs. Sounds a bit Windows-ish, but there's actually an on-activate function which creates that column in the database.
Hello!
I'm using this plugin with wordpress 2.3 but I'm getting the same error John has.
Plugin version is 2.2
Also I've noticed that it does not change my robots.txt nor my .htaccess files though it saves the options if I edit them in the option panel.
Hmm Niccolo, the first one is a known issue which i'll try to solve ASAP (as soon as i get out of the conference I'm currently in) and the other one is actually new to me...
So I'll try to make some changes here and there... I'll try rewriting from scratch my htaccess and see what happens. I'll try with permissions and server error logs... I'll keep you updated.
I'll eventually post you my folder structure and options so we can sort this out.
Later Joost!
thx Niccolo :)
When I install the plugin I get this error:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: is_tag() in /homepages/32/d211729909/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/robots-meta/robots-meta.php on line 555
How can I fix this?
Cheers
Lochlin
Lochlin: let me guess, you're not on 2.3 or higher? I'll have to fix that...
You would guess right... I am on 2.2.2 I will have a shot at upgrading and see how I go.
That would fix it yes.
Windows-ish? Your plugin simply stopped working on my setup. So, I dropped it. I was actually able do duplicate all your important features myself with a couple of hacks to the Header template of my theme.
John: sorry to hear that it stopped working, i've updated it this morning to fix quite a few bugs, you might want to try that version.
There's a lot of this which you can't do in a template, you can't add noindex to your template and make it show up easily for specific pages...
Just what i was looking for! Need to noindex,follow my sitemap pages and all-in-one seo pack didnt seem to do it, now to see if this has everything i need in it or if i have to do a mashup!
@Trophaeum: good :)
Got this error after trying to activate:
Array
Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/psvyuplc/public_html/blog/wp-content/plugins/robots-meta.php:734) in /home/psvyuplc/public_html/blog/wp-includes/pluggable-functions.php on line 270
But now on the page it says it's activated?
I like (and use) this plugin beacause it is very useful.
But I have a problem:
I have deleted some posts from my wordpress blog. These posts still indexed in google. As I found, it is impossible to use your plugin to (noindex) deleted posts, so i tried many methods in order to block+remove these urls from google without success.
I am using robots.txt to block undesired links.
My blog has the default links:
http://www.example.com/?p=10
http://www.example.com/?p=11
http://www.example.com/?p=12
I will be grateful if you tell me how can i block and remove these specific links from google.
Rasheed.
Hi Rasheed, the fastest way is to use the URL removal tool for those posts:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=61062
Hell Joost,
Thanks for your quick respond.
I have tried to remove it through Google Webmaster Tools but it returns(Denied)as shown in this screen shot:
http://img401.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ddwy0.gif
In order to remove links from google index these urls must be blocked at first. The problem i can't block these dynamic urls.
Yes you can, just add this to your robots.txt:
Disallow: /?p=85
etc.
It had been added ,as you described, before many months but it still not blocked.
Disallow: /?p=174
Disallow: /?p=7
Disallow: /?p=95
Disallow: /?p=80
And also tried:
Disallow: /?p=174/
Disallow: /?p=7/
Disallow: /?p=95/
Disallow: /?p=80/
My robots.txt works like a charm but concerning this issue it is simply not working.
Hmm have you tried testing the robots.txt with the robots.txt validator inside google webmaster tools?
Yes.
Also validated it here:
http://tool.motoricerca.info/robots-checker.phtml
The result:
No errors found in this robots.txt file
Which pages did it say you were blocking?
The result:
===================================
The following block of code DISALLOWS the crawling of the following files and directories:
/*p=174/ /*p=7/ /*p=95/ /*p=80/ /*?p=179/ /?p=178/ /*?p=155/ /*?p=66/ /*p=193/ /*p=407/ /?p=189/ /?p=59/ /?p=465/ /*?p=85/ /*p=232/ /*p=117/ /*?p=368/ /*?p=350/ /*p=76/ /*p=85/ /*p=379/
to the following spiders/robots: Googlebot
===================================
As you see i tried many combination to see which of them is effective.
/*p=00/
/?p=00/
/*?p=00/
None of them worked.
Ah, try adding a ^ in front, so doing:
Disallow: ^/?p=174$
Disallow: ^/?p=174$
Or
Disallow: ^/?p=174$/
?
Thanks
The first.
Thanks Joost.
It had been done.
I will inform you later with the results.
I appreciate your generous help.
By the way, your blog is one of my subscriptions at google reader.
Glad to be of assistance, hope you keep enjoying the blog!
Would it best that set noindex for tags just as well the others?
Hi there Joost. Great plugin you've created there, I already love it.
But sadly I have a little Problem already:
First: Iam using wp 2.5.1 with an actual theme. The installation is quite fresh and there are not much plugins in it.
Problem: When I want to use a nofollow tag on a single page, it doesn't take effekt on this page. Neither there's a radio button checked by standard, nor after activating it and saving the page (the dot is removed again after reloading). The result is that the nofollow tag is missing in the source code.
I think the problem is my wordpress version, because on another blog i have 2.3 and the whole thing works perfect.
Please help :)
Greetings,
Flo
Hi
Can any one tell me how can i know that my pages are index or noidex format. If my pages are in noindex format how can i change it to index while using wordpress.
Thanks
Nice! This plugin's perfect for my needs.
Thanks!
thank you man, the right plugin i need.
I want to add enough content to my blog in short time, I only have some plr articles, but really lazy to rewrite them, so i plan to copy and paste, but I think google may penalize my site, so i want these posts to be not indexed, ,,spend some time to search around, finally find your site:) glad to find your plugin!
thanks again, nice work!
Hi, i have a problem, i find the plugin do not work if i make a post scheduled, when the scheduled post publish, i do not see the noindex tag in the meta. btw, i also use all in one seo plugin, does it matter?
Dear Joost,
first of all thanks for your great plugins.
I was wondering: it is possible to exclude from indexing just some selected tag pages (eg: tag/john - tag/smith - etc.)?
Thank you very much in advance.