Shall Google index a search result?

[GeorgFranz]

Hi,

I've a website with about 1000 articles.Each article has one ore more keywords / tags. So I display these keywords at the article page and put a link to the intern search engine. (Like a tag cloud)

The search engine lists als articles with the same keyword and creates a result page. This result page is indexed by Google. The search result contains the title of the article, a short description (150-300 chars.) and a link to the article.

So, Google believes, that there are about 5.000 pages instead of 1.000 because auf the link to the search result pages.

The old rule was for me: More pages in Google = better.

But is this still true nowadays? Would be a "noindex, follow" better on these search result pages? (Is there a way to tell Google that this is a search result page?)

Best wishes,

Georg.

[GeorgFranz]

Hi Alan,

well, I am not affected by Panda - it's a german website. But Panda is arriving soon

Your answer makes sense, I'll give it a try and "noindex" the search result.

Best wishes,

Georg.

[AlanBleiweiss]

Georg,

What I communicate as "best practices" to clients is to noindex/follow all on-site search, however you can look at your analytics to determine if you think you're getting enough value out of the current system or if wiping that out will help with long term refinement of your content.  The concept for not having those indexed is many less pages would be given much more strength and weight long-term. .  Unfortunately there's no exact method to determine if this will be the case in your unique situation.

Given that your search results provide depth of content (not just a bunch of links, but actual, relevant text linking to details pages, I'd be curious to see if any of your site, or specific phrases you were previously found for that led to those search pages were hit by Panda.