How to make sure dev site is not index in wordpress and how would it be affected?

[andrewwatson92]

hi guys!

I'm currently having a dev version of my site (dev.website.com) that once everything is done i would move the dev to the public domain (website.com). But since is a total duplicate content of my real site would it affect the seo? if so, i tried setting the reading privacy in wordpress so google would not index it but im afraid when i live it in the future and revert the setting back to normal it would affect the site seo.

any opinion and suggestion on this?

[Leonie-Kramer]

Hi, to be sure your dev site is not indexed put it behind a login / password. As google can't login to your site, google can't index it.

In WP you did the right thing, when you put your site live make sure you use a seo plugin (Yoast) and use canonical tag, to avoid duplicate content. https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/

[Kingof5]

Might want to add the dev site to Webmaster Tools so you can easily remove any pages that do get indexed.

[davebuts]

Hi Andrew,

I would go with what you said originally. "noindex" the dev site (dev.website.com) then when you switch the site live, turn off "noindex". You won't get any SEO issues from doing this. The only possible issue you will get is if you forget to turn of "noindex" when the site goes live This will be a big problem so don't forget to turn it off!

Cheers

[Stevejacobsen]

Don't register the host name in DNS. Just use local host file on your pc's for your development and testing processes.

[andrewwatson92]

why not? isnt host name in dns a better choice? thats what im doing now

[andrewwatson92]

what if i add a login in the front page just like leonie said? i assume it wont be index?

[Stevejacobsen]

If you add a host name with your registrar the site then becomes available for everyone in the world. Even with a login you could have some leakage.

If your site is set up to only answer to http://test.sitename.com and the only place you put the translation for that is in your local host file there is no opportunity for leakage. You don't have to worry about trying to block access other ways.