Google indexes draft page in preview mode.

[milleronic]

Any page or post should not be indexed by search engines if the status is not "publish". A meta tag should be added to a preview to discourage search indexing.

[lukecavanagh]

@milleronic

Draft post previews can only be viewed if logged in.

So if Google does index a site, the draft post preview would return a 404 error.

Example

​http://local.wordpress.dev/?p=967&preview=true

So if not logged in it will redirect to
​http://local.wordpress.dev/?p=967

Which will return a 404 error on that post id.

​https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/fzEHafWaRoc

[milleronic]

I know that draft posts can only be seen if logged in, but search engines should not index them, as a search may bring up the post which will return a 404, which confuses people looking for something on the site. (This has occurred more than once on our site)

So can posts not having a status of 'publish' include a robots nofollow attribute in the head?

[peterwilsoncc]

Replying to milleronic:

I know that draft posts can only be seen if logged in, but search engines should not index them, as a search may bring up the post which will return a 404, which confuses people looking for something on the site. (This has occurred more than once on our site)

So can posts not having a status of 'publish' include a robots nofollow attribute in the head?

I expect the cause on your site is a plugin removing the login check for previews. That the plugin allows Google to index the page is a plugin bug, not a core bug.

On a standard WP install, search engines will receive a 404 and will not index the site.

[milleronic]

No plugins on our site do what you mention. It is a standard WP install. Nevertheless, consider this closed. Thanks for your time.