Password Protected Page(s) Indexed

[aua]

Hi,

I am wondering if my website can get a penalty if some password protected pages are showing up when I search on google:

site:www.example.com/sub-group/pass-word-protected-page

That shows that my password protected page was indexed either before or after adding the password protection.

I've seen people suggest no indexing the page. Is that the best method to take care of this? What if we are planning on pushing the page live later on? All of these pages have no title tag, meta description, image alt text, etc. Should I add them for each page? I am wondering what is the best step, especially if we are planning on pushing the page(s) live.

Thanks for any help!

[Dalessi]

Hi,

I would "no follow" and "no index" those pages. You really don't want them showing up in the index anyway. They are not helping your seo. Later on when you want those pages to be active and indexed you could just change your tags and update your site maps.

Best Regards.

[aua]

Thanks. I ended up "no indexing" those pages. Someone else told me not to "no follow", so I changed it back to "follow". Haven't really seen any changes on the SERPs from doing this, so not sure if these pages were causing any issues.

Thanks again.