Do password protected pages get indexed?

  • I have gone through the forums, but am unable to find a definitive answer for this.

    We would like to offer links to downloadable PDFs only to paid conference attendees. Our plan is to place these download links into a password protected page. Those users with the password will be the only ones able to access the PDFs.

    We do not want Google to index and serve these links in their search results. Does Google index pages that are password protected?

    Thanks for you help,
    Jessica

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • Matt Knowles

    (@aestheticdesign)

    You would think that if it is password protected, it wouldn’t be possible for Google to index it, but apparently, that’s not the case. Seems the content can be leaked via the RSS feed, and possibly other methods.

    The best way would be to create a password protected directory outside of WordPress and store the PDF files there.

    Note that Google and some other search engines will index URLs they find in email they process, so simply having a directory not linked to on the web site is not good enough if you email the link to someone. Having the directory password protected by the operating system is the best method of keeping content private other than not putting it on the web in the first place.

    Thread Starter jessicasantacruz

    (@jessicasantacruz)

    Thank you Matt; I will discuss protecting the directories with the host.

    I’m also looking into password protecting the PDFs themselves using Acrobat.

    I appreciate you taking the time to help.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • The topic ‘Do password protected pages get indexed?’ is closed to new replies.