How to keep downloadable files hidden from search engines

Ideally, you should modify this setting when you upload a new PDF. If the PDF already exists, it is probably already indexed in Google and might take some time for search engines to recrawl your site to noindex it. I then used the Web Developer add on in Firefox to check the header response for this line: x-robots-tag: noindex, noarchive, nosnippet.

X - Firefox - Spdy : h2. WPGarage shows my dedicated relationship with WordPress over the years - full of love, laughs, tears, growth and strong drinks.

Ryan Hellyer. I hope you can understand. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. This is a file that search engines take a look at before spidering your website.

This file should be placed in your website root. How are we doing? Please help us improve Stack Overflow. Take our short survey. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Collectives on Stack Overflow.

Learn more. Hiding folders from search engines [closed] Ask Question. Asked 5 years, 3 months ago. Active 5 years, 3 months ago. Viewed 1k times. There are multiple ways to do this combining them is obviously a sure way to accomplish this : 1 Use robots.

Non-standard but works for major search engines. Zistoloen 9, 6 6 gold badges 33 33 silver badges 59 59 bronze badges. Counterintuitively, using both x-robots-tag and robots. If you use both robots. Using robots. It only prevents crawling. See Pacerier 's answer for correct solution. ChiTec ChiTec 11 1 1 bronze badge.

James M James M 3 3 bronze badges. Old account Old account 3 3 silver badges 18 18 bronze badges. I did read recently about using a noindex directive rather than disallow inside the robots. And now I can't find where I read it. Sign up or log in Sign up using Google.

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