Need only tens of pages to be indexed out of hundreds: Robots.txt is Okay for Google to proceed with?

[vtmoz]

Hi all,

We 2 sub domains with hundreds of pages where we need only 50 pages to get indexed which are important. Unfortunately the CMS of these sub domains is very old and not supporting "noindex" tag to be deployed on page level. So we are planning to block the entire sites from robots.txt and allow the 50 pages needed. But we are not sure if this is the right approach as Google been suggesting to depend mostly on "noindex" than robots.txt. Please suggest whether we can proceed with robots.txt file.

Thanks

[GastonRiera]

Hi vtmoz,

Given the limitations you are telling us, I'd give noindex in robots.txt a try.
I've run some experiments and found that noindex rule in Robots.txt works. It definitely won´t remove from index that pages, but it will stop showing them for search results.

I'd suggest you to try using that rule with care. 
Also, run some experiments on your own. My first test would be only adding one or two pages, the one that causes more trouble being indexed (maybe due to undesired traffic or due to ranking on undesired search terms).

Hope it helps.
Best luck!
GR