Yoast Sitemap Errors

What you can do is set noindex to the relevant PDF file HTTP header so that the search engine can see that you don’t want the relevant page to be indexed.

Alternatively, you could create a redirect from the relevant PDF file to any other most relevant page on your website that will signal the search engine the relevant PDF file is no longer exist on your website and will eventually drop it from the search results.

@achiaravallogmailcom

It seems that a particular CONSCIOUS-CONNECTION-MEDIA-KIT-2014.pdf is still in this server path

wp-content/uploads/2013/11/CONSCIOUS-CONNECTION-MEDIA-KIT-2014.pdf

We understand you want this file to be removed from the search results. You can do so by adding an x-robots tag in the .htaccess file:

For example:

SetEnvIf Request_URI "/path/to/example.pdf" NOINDEX
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noindex, nofollow" env=NOINDEX

You can check this link and find more information here:https://yoast.com/x-robots-tag-play/

Thank you for the replies. It appears you need Yoast premium to setup a redirect?

I am also not clear how to exactly add an x-robots or noindex tag in the .htaccess file.

We are also unable to locate the file anywhere on the server or database.

It does appear that the PDF is now gone from Google search, but still lives online. This may just be a normal fluctuation in Google’s algorithm?

@achiaravallogmailcom We’ve addressed each of your concerns individually below:

It appears you need Yoast premium to setup a redirect?

Yes, that is correct. However, if you don’t want to purchase Yoast SEO Premium to create the redirect there are many free plugins available in the WordPress plugin repository here that will also allow you to create redirects.

We are also unable to locate the file anywhere on the server or database.

As previously stated, we were able to locate a copy of the PDF that is available on your site at the following URL: https://www.consciousconnectionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/CONSCIOUS-CONNECTION-MEDIA-KIT-2014.pdf

It does appear that the PDF is now gone from Google search, but still lives online. This may just be a normal fluctuation in Google’s algorithm?

In order to ensure that the PDF is not shown again in the Google search results, we would recommend creating either a redirect or implementing the aforementioned code in your site’s .htaccess file to place a noindex tag in the PDF’s header.

We are going ahead and marking this issue as resolved due to inactivity. If you require any further assistance please create a new issue.