How to block "print" pages from indexing
-
I have a fairly large FAQ section and every article has a "print" button. Unfortunately, this is creating a page for every article which is muddying up the index - especially on my own site using Google Custom Search.
Can you recommend a way to block this from happening?
Example Article:
Example "Print" page:
http://www.knottyboy.com/lore/article.php?id=052&action=print
-
Donnie, I agree. However, we had the same problem on a website and here's what we did the canonical tag:
Over a period of 3-4 weeks, all those print pages disappeared from the SERP. Now if I take a print URL and do a cache: for that page, it shows me the web version of that page.
So yes, I agree the question was about blocking the pages from getting indexed. There's no real recipe here, it's about getting the right solution. Before canonical tag, robots.txt was the only solution. But now with canonical there (provided one has the time and resources available to implement it vs adding one line of text to robots.txt), you can technically 301 the pages and not have to stop/restrict the spiders from crawling them.
Absolutely no offence to your solution in any way. Both are indeed workable solutions. The best part is that your robots.txt solution takes 30 seconds to implement since you provided the actually disallow code :), so it's better.
-
Thanks Jennifer, will do! So much good information.
-
Sorry, but I have to jump in - do NOT use all of those signals simultaneously. You'll make a mess, and they'll interfere with each other. You can try Robots.txt or NOINDEX on the page level - my experience suggests NOINDEX is much more effective.
Also, do not nofollow the links yet - you'll block the crawl, and then the page-level cues (like NOINDEX) won't work. You can nofollow later. This is a common mistake and it will keep your fixes from working.
-
Josh, please read my and Dr. Pete's comments below. Don't nofollow the links, but do use the meta noindex,follow on the page.
-
Rel-canonical, in practice, does essentially de-index the non-canonical version. Technically, it's not a de-indexation method, but it works that way.
-
You are right Donnie. I've "good answered" you too.
I've gone ahead and updated my robots.txt file. As soon as I am able, I will use no indexon the page, no follow on the links, and rel=canonical.
This is just what I needed, a quick fix until I can make a more permanent solution.
-
Your welcome : )
-
Although you are correct... there is still more then one way to skin a chicken.
-
But the spiders still run on the page and read the canonical link, however with the robot text the spiders will not.
-
Yes, but Rel=Canonical does not block a page it only tells google which page to follow out of two pages.The question was how to block, not how to tell google which link to follow. I believe you gave credit to the wrong answer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_link_element
This is not fair. lol
-
I have to agree with Jen - Robots.txt isn't great for getting indexed pages out. It's good for prevention, but tends to be unreliable as a cure. META NOINDEX is probably more reliable.
One trick - DON'T nofollow the print links, at least not yet. You need Google to crawl and read the NOINDEX tags. Once the ?print pages are de-indexed, you could nofollow the links, too.
-
Yes, it's strongly recommended. It should be fairly simple to populate this tag with the "full" URL of the article based on the article ID. This approach will not only help you get rid of the duplicate content issue, but a canonical tag essentially works like a 301 redirect. So from all search engine perspective you are 301'ing your print pages to the real web urls without redirecting the actual user's who are browsing the print pages if they need to.
-
Ya it is actually really useful. Unfortunately they are out of business now - so I'm hacking it on my own.
I will take your advice. I've shamefully never used rel= canonical before - so now is a good time to start.
-
True but using robots.txt does not keep them out of the index. Only using "noindex" will do that.
-
Thanks Donnie. Much appreciated!
-
I actually remember Lore from a while ago. It's an interesting, easy to use FAQ CMS.
Anyways, I would also recommend implementing Canonical Tags for any possible duplicate content issues. So whether it's the print or the web version, each one of them will contain a canonical tag pointing to the web url of that article in the section of your website.
rel="canonical" href="http://www.knottyboy.com/lore/idx.php/11/183/Maintenance-of-Mature-Locks-6-months-/article/How-do-I-get-sand-out-of-my-dreads.html" /> -
-
Try This.
User-agent: *
Disallow: /*&action=print
-
Theres more then one way to skin a chicken.
-
Rather than using robots.txt I'd use a noindex,follow tag instead to the page. This code goes into the tag for each print page. And it will ensure that the pages don't get indexed but that the links are followed.
-
That would be great. Do you mind giving me an example?
-
you can block in .robot text, every page that ends in action=print
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Page Indexing without content
Hello. I have a problem of page indexing without content. I have website in 3 different languages and 2 of the pages are indexing just fine, but one language page (the most important one) is indexing without content. When searching using site: page comes up, but when searching unique keywords for which I should rank 100% nothing comes up. This page was indexing just fine and the problem arose couple of days ago after google update finished. Looking further, the problem is language related and every page in the given language that is newly indexed has this problem, while pages that were last crawled around one week ago are just fine. Has anyone ran into this type of problem?
Technical SEO | | AtuliSulava1 -
Drop in Indexed Page + Organic Traffic
Hey Moz Community, I've been seeing a steady decrease in search console of pages being indexed by Google for our eCommerce site. This is corresponding to lower impressions and traffic in general this year. We started with around a million pages being indexed in Nov of 2015 down to 18,000 pages this Nov. I realized that since we don't have around 3,000 or so products year round this is mostly likely a good thing. I've checked to make sure our main landing pages are being indexed which they are and our sitemap was updated several times this year, although we're in the process of updating it again to resubmit. I also checked our robots.txt and there's nothing out of the ordinary. In the last month we've recently gotten rid of some duplicate content issues caused by pagination by using canonical tags but that's all we've done to reduce the number of pages crawled. We have seen some soft 404's and some server errors coming up in our crawl error report that we've either fixed or are trying to fix. Not really sure where to start looking to find a solution to the problem or if it's even a huge issue, but the drop in traffic is also not great. The drop in traffic corresponded to lose in rankings as well so there could be correlation or none. Any ideas here?
Technical SEO | | znotes0 -
Sudden decrease in indexed AMP pages after 8/1/16 update
After the AMP update on 8/1/16, the number of AMP pages indexed suddenly dropped by about 50% and it's crushing our search traffic- I haven't been able to find any documentation on any changes to look out for and why we are getting a penalty- any advice or something I should look out for?
Technical SEO | | nystromandy0 -
Using http: shorthand inside canonical tag ("//" instead of "http:") can cause harm?
HI, I am planning to launch a new site, and shortly after to move to HTTPS. to save the need to change over 5,000 canonical tags in pages the webmaster suggested we implement inside the rel canonical "//" instead of the absolute path, would that do any damage or be a problem? oranges-south-dakota" />
Technical SEO | | Kung_fu_Panda0 -
Google dropping pages from SERPs even though indexed and cached. (Shift over to https suspected.)
Anybody know why pages that have previously been indexed - and that are still present in Google's cache - are now not appearing in Google SERPs? All the usual suspects - noindex, robots, duplication filter, 301s - have been ruled out. We shifted our site over from http to https last week and it appears to have started then, although we have also been playing around with our navigation structure a bit too. Here are a few examples... Example 1: Live URL: https://www.normanrecords.com/records/149002-memory-drawings-there-is-no-perfect-place Cached copy: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://www.normanrecords.com/records/149002-memory-drawings-there-is-no-perfect-place SERP (1): https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=memory+drawings+there+is+no+perfect+place SERP (2): https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=memory+drawings+there+is+no+perfect+place+site%3Awww.normanrecords.com Example 2: SERP: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=deaf+center+recount+site%3Awww.normanrecords.com Live URL: https://www.normanrecords.com/records/149001-deaf-center-recount- Cached copy: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://www.normanrecords.com/records/149001-deaf-center-recount- These are pages that have been linked to from our homepage (Moz PA of 68) prominently for days, are present and correct in our sitemap (https://www.normanrecords.com/catalogue_sitemap.xml), have unique content, have decent on-page optimisation, etc. etc. We moved over to https on 11 Aug. There were some initial wobbles (e.g. 301s from normanrecords.com to www.normanrecords.com got caught up in a nasty loop due to the conflicting 301 from http to https) but these were quickly sorted (i.e. spotted and resolved within minutes). There have been some other changes made to the structure of the site (e.g. a reduction in the navigation options) but nothing I know of that would cause pages to drop like this. For the first example (Memory Drawings) we were ranking on the first page right up until this morning and have been receiving Google traffic for it ever since it was added to the site on 4 Aug. Any help very much appreciated! At the very end of my tether / understanding here... Cheers, Nathon
Technical SEO | | nathonraine0 -
Google indexing despite robots.txt block
Hi This subdomain has about 4'000 URLs indexed in Google, although it's blocked via robots.txt: https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&q=site%3Awww1.swisscom.ch&oq=site%3Awww1.swisscom.ch This has been the case for almost a year now, and it does not look like Google tends to respect the blocking in http://www1.swisscom.ch/robots.txt Any clues why this is or what I could do to resolve it? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | zeepartner0 -
Should We Index These Category Pages?
Currently we have marked category pages like http://www.yournextshoes.com/celebrities/kim-kardashian/ as follow/noindex as they essentially do not include any original content. On the other hand, for someone searching for Kim Kardashian shoes, it's a highly relevant page as we provide links to all the Kim Kardashian shoe sightings that we have covered. Should we index the category pages or leave them unindexed?
Technical SEO | | Jantaro0 -
When Is It Good To Redirect Pages on Your Site to Another Page?
Suppose you have a page on your site that discusses a topic that is similar to another page but targets a different keyword phrase. The page has medium quality content, no inbound links, and the attracts little traffic. Should you 301 redirect the page to a stronger page?
Technical SEO | | ProjectLabs1