hey i have a bunch of testpages like mywebpage.com/testpage.php and there obviously not linked to my home page of anything like that can google index theses testpages and can it hurt my PR by not having them linked to my home page?

If google doesn't know or see the url it cannot find them.

I think you should consider configuring your robot.txt to disallow google spiders from visiting those pages.

You can put no index to that page so that Google will not index it.

You can use robot.txt for nofollow and noindex. I think there will not be any affect in your PR of home page.

If they aren't linked ANYWHERE they won't be found.

Why would you think that NOT linking to a page affect the SGB?????

Actually they can be found. Sorry Chris. There are a lot of websites that will display the entire content of a server, depending on how that server is configured. Google will be able to find and index those pages. I found that the hard way, one of my clients being stuck with a under construction page for a while in google cache. robot.txt will stop that. Easy to use, and better safe that sorry.

You obviously missed the

If they aren't linked ANYWHERE

Certainly if a server is configured to allow directory browsing and therefore will create LINKS to documents in the folder if the folder is requested via HTTP, AND the SEs find a link to the folder. But again it relies on the Search Engine finding a link that leads them there.

I found that the hard way, one of my clients being stuck with a under construction page for a while in google cache.

That's because some registrars publish links to domains registered by them.

Notice the common word to all those scenarios, "link"! Without links SEs will never know that a file, folder or a site exists.
SEs cannot know the folder structure of a website UNLESS you provide a means for them to traverse that structure.

SEs cannot know what files are in any folders on a site UNLESS you provide the means for them to discover the URIs.

You can "hide" the contents of any folder by putting a blank index page in the folder, no SE will be able to reach the documents contained within the folder unless there are links to particular document URIs.

just modify your robot.txt and that should do.

Originally Posted by chrishirst

You obviously missed the

Certainly if a server is configured to allow directory browsing and therefore will create LINKS to documents in the folder if the folder is requested via HTTP, AND the SEs find a link to the folder. But again it relies on the Search Engine finding a link that leads them there.


That's because some registrars publish links to domains registered by them.

Notice the common word to all those scenarios, "link"! Without links SEs will never know that a file, folder or a site exists.
SEs cannot know the folder structure of a website UNLESS you provide a means for them to traverse that structure.

SEs cannot know what files are in any folders on a site UNLESS you provide the means for them to discover the URIs.

You can "hide" the contents of any folder by putting a blank index page in the folder, no SE will be able to reach the documents contained within the folder unless there are links to particular document URIs.

You're right. I was talking about user controlled links. The user often enough has no control on what the server allows. Or enough knowledge on this. So as good practice, robot.txt should be used.

As long as they are not linked on any of your *visible* pages, then you dont have to worry about them.

use "no index" meta tag or restrict above pages by "robots.txt" file to avoid search engine crawler and indexing.

Use Robots.txt or Meta tag "index" "nofollow" it will help you more..

Hi Chris!!

'robots.txt' is the only solution to your problems.

Just don't link to them and you should be fine.

Google definitely finds this pages even though you don't link them to any of your other pages. I say this in my personal experience. If you won't want them to be index make sure to put it on your robots.txt (Disallow: /page.html)

Having a link from each of web pages of a website to home page, is very better. But it cant hurt your pagerank a lot. But having it is a recommendation.

Just place noindex in your robot and html tags for test pages. But if it is not linked form anywhere to that site there is really big chance that this page will never get crawled.

But why it important for you?