How can Google see password-protected areas of my website?
May 31, 2010 4:09 PM Subscribe
I've password-protected part of my website so that I could put up some info about a project that a friend and I are working on, without anybody else seeing it. I have a vanity search saved on Google for my name. Today I got a Google Alert for one of the new password-protected pages. How is Google able to read my password-protected pages?
Response by poster: Sorry. It's a Wordpress blog (but on my own domain) and I clicked their "password protected" thing and put in a password.
posted by joannemerriam at 4:18 PM on May 31, 2010
posted by joannemerriam at 4:18 PM on May 31, 2010
Response by poster: I want Google to index the public pages, and the password protected pages are in the same folder (presumably - I didn't do anything to separate them). How is Google bypassing the password to begin with?
Floam, I'm happy to send you the link. Thanks!
posted by joannemerriam at 4:22 PM on May 31, 2010
Floam, I'm happy to send you the link. Thanks!
posted by joannemerriam at 4:22 PM on May 31, 2010
I think the issue is that Google is indexing the pages, and when you click the links, you can see the content -- because you happen to be logged in. But people who are not logged in will not be able to see the content.
Example... if I click any of the resultant links, I see "This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below"
posted by MrSomeone at 4:26 PM on May 31, 2010
Example... if I click any of the resultant links, I see "This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below"
posted by MrSomeone at 4:26 PM on May 31, 2010
Have you tried this vanity search on a machine that doesn't have you logged into Google, and is completely stripped of Google tools?
posted by circular at 4:30 PM on May 31, 2010
posted by circular at 4:30 PM on May 31, 2010
If you can edit the HTML for your page, add this to the header:
<meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow">
That will stop Google from indexing it and following the links in it.
posted by richg at 5:19 PM on May 31, 2010 [1 favorite]
<meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow">
That will stop Google from indexing it and following the links in it.
posted by richg at 5:19 PM on May 31, 2010 [1 favorite]
How does your password protection work?
I inherited a site and we noticed things were randomly being deleted and none of the people with access would admit to having done it so I checked the logs and it was google! It had got access to the admin site and was indexing the pages - including delete links. It turned out that whoever built the site originally was using javascript to redirect away unauthenticated users (so with javascript turned off you could access the admin site without being authenticated!)
posted by missmagenta at 12:55 AM on June 1, 2010 [1 favorite]
I inherited a site and we noticed things were randomly being deleted and none of the people with access would admit to having done it so I checked the logs and it was google! It had got access to the admin site and was indexing the pages - including delete links. It turned out that whoever built the site originally was using javascript to redirect away unauthenticated users (so with javascript turned off you could access the admin site without being authenticated!)
posted by missmagenta at 12:55 AM on June 1, 2010 [1 favorite]
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posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:18 PM on May 31, 2010