Google’s John Mueller posted on Google+ an overview of how to remove your staging server from Google and then the best way to block it going forward. Some call it a staging server, some a development server, some a testing server or some have all of these three and more. Heck, we even have pentest servers here, so we need to block them carefully from search engines and open them to those that need access.

First John explained that if these servers do find their content indexed by Google, the fastest way to remove the content is via Google Search Console. Of course that means you need to verify the staging URL with Google Search Console, but that is only long enough until you do the remove content method. After that, you then want to close the site from the outside world.

John wrote:

Then going forward, you want to lock down access to the server. John shared these tips, i.e. blocking on the server side with HTTP authentication or IP address whitelisting. He said all the other alternatives he does not like. John wrote:

He shared more details on Google+ adding that it’s normal for URLs to not be recrawled in months, so if you add any block on the URL level, it can easily take a half year or longer to be fully processed for all URLs.” “The site-removal request gives you most of that time, and you can submit another one should you need to extend it,” he said.

Forum discussion at Google+.