Content in forum signatures being spidered, does it matter?
-
Hello,
first post here, just started with SEOmoz so hope it's relevant. Searched a fair bit on this without getting a good answer either way so interested to get some opinions.
The core of the site I run is a forum dedicated to collecting, for the sake of argument let's say cars. A good percentage of the users have signatures which list their collection, for example
1968 Car A - 1987 Car B - 1998 Car D and so on....
These signatures lists can be 20 items or more, some hotlink the signautres back to the relevant post on the forum, some not. The signatures show on every post on which the user makes.
What I'm noting is
a) SEOMoz is reporting a LOT of links on every forum page, due mainly to these signatures I guess.
and of more interest
b) The content of the signatures is being spidered. So for example of you search for '1968 Car A' you might get a couple of good results directly relevant to '1968 Car A' from my site, but you also get a lot of other non-relevant threads as results because the user just happens to have posted on them. Obviously this is much more apparent on the site google search.
So what is the best approach?
Leave as is? Hide the signatures from the BOTs? Another approach?
-
On reflection I've taken the suggested approach of using the nocontent tags for CSE and ensured all signature links are nofollow.
Once again ensured bots can see the signatures due to slight concern about cloaking penalty.
Thanks for your feedback.
-
Rutteger,
If that forum template really removes signatures ONLY for bots, then yes that is cloaking. I wouldn't do that.
The info above was for solving the internal site search problem only, not for Google web search.
However, the additional tips I provided should help with web search. Other than that I wouldn't be too terribly worried about it.
-
Thanks for taking the time to respond.
Although not 100% clear I'm assuming this only applies to custom search rather than google proper?
Never put much time into SEO over the years, always hoped google would figure stuff out. Signature content is defintely being indexed.
For the moment taken the approach of one of the 'SEO' forum templates of not showing signatures to the BOTs. Will see how it goes. Bit reluctant to do this because slightly worried it might be seen as cloaking but hope it'll work out long term...
-
Hello Rutteger,
Regarding SiteSearch, this is from Google Support:
Exclude boilerplate content
"If your pages have regions containing boilerplate content that's not relevant to the main content of the page, you can identify it using the
nocontent
class attribute. When Google Custom Search sees this tag, we'll ignore any keywords it contains and won't take them into account when calculating ranking for your Custom Search engine... To use thenocontent
class attribute, you'll need to tag the boilerplate content, and then modify your context file. This tells Google that you're using thenocontent
class attribute."Read the rest here:
http://support.google.com/customsearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2631036I think it is a great idea for you to have members use that field to showcase their collections in this way. It keeps the signature content relevant (at least at the forum level, if not for the thread) and increases internal linking.
Additionally, I would do the following:
- Limit signature privileges to members with a certain number of posts and/or other metrics (e.g. Kudos, points...)
- Do not allow external linking from forum signatures
I will leave this question open as a discussion in case anyone else has first-hand experience with traffic / ranking changes before and after removing signatures from a forum - or with handling the situation in some other way.
Lastly, Google is pretty good at recognizing boilerplate content. They have been dealing with forum signatures for years, and since the area is highly-prone to spam I would imagine they know what the signatures are on most major forum platforms. Thus, I wouldn't fret over it too much unless it is clearly causing you problems in the SERPs.
Good luck!
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
-
Content in Tabs
I speed read an article recently and forgot to save it regarding Contents on a page in tabs. Is it correct that now Google is rendering the entire page it's better not to have content in tabs hidden by Javascript? As it stands at the moment, we've got the tabs set-up so that the main part of the page containing the keyword rich text is in a tab and not the first thing presented to the user
On-Page Optimization | | Ham19790 -
SEO Content Revolution Question
I was wondering if articles written about questions people are asking will help my website rank better. For example let's say I wrote an article answering the query, "What Hair Dye Does Angela Merkel Use?" or, "Is Hillary Clinton Thinking of Running for President," and they rank well on google, and in turn they get viewed a lot by searchers because it answers their queries. Would this help my website as whole start ranking better? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | OOMDODigital0 -
Duplicate content
crawler shows following links as duplicate http://www.mysite.com http://mysite.com http://www.mysite.com/ http://mysite.com. http://mysite.com/index.html How can i solve this issue?
On-Page Optimization | | bhanu22170 -
Content placment best for SEO?
We currently have a scroll bar box at the bottom of our page with information in but from what I can see scroll bar boxes at the bottom of websites looking a little spammy (a lot of over optimized websites using them) would we be best in using a strategy like this site www.solopress.com/ which implement a show more link that drops information down would this be read as good information for Google or look just as spammy?
On-Page Optimization | | BobAnderson1 -
Duplicate Content for Spanish & English Product
Hi There, Our company provides training courses and I am looking to provide the Spanish version of a course that we already provide in English. As it is an e-commerce site, our landing page for the English version gives the full description of the course and all related details. Once the course is purchased, a flash based course launches within a player window and the student begins the course. For the Spanish version of the course, my target customers are English speaking supervisors purchasing the course for their Spanish speaking workers. So the landing page will still be in English (just like the English version of the course) with the same basic description, with the only content differences on that page being the inclusion of the fact that this course is in Spanish and a few details around that. The majority of the content on these two separate landing pages will be exactly the same, as the description for the overall course is the same, just that it's presented in a different language, so it needs to be 2 separate products. My fear is that Google will read this as duplicate content and I will be penalized for it. Is this a possibility or will Google know why I set it up this way and not penalize me? If that is a possibility, how should I go about doing this correctly? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | NiallTom0 -
Content ideas for different sections of a news website?
A news website I'm working on has pages for various sectors, much like any major news site (in this case for example - defence, energy, trade & finance etc.). I've been asked to add content of 150 words or more to each sector, containing keywords we're targeting. I can see the value of this SEO-wise but can't see how we can write anything that adds value for the user. I don't want to add some rubbish for the sake of keywords, I want the information to be useful.The best idea I can come up with is to write an overview of the challenges and topics making the news in each sector, perhaps a bit of historical detail - but I don’t think this will add much value from a user-perspective, and it's not something where there will be the resources available to update often (or to provide some 'best on the web' type info). Any other ideas? Or do you think my idea is a great one? ;-)The pages in question are like the majority of news pages; each item with a synopsis and the usual extra things like a poll and 'most read' box. I've looked at other news sites and can't see one that has any extra content in the way we require.Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | Alex-Harford0 -
Where to Put Content For Product Pages - How To Structure Website?
Currently we have 300+ products. We do not have a CMS or Ecommerce site at the time being for certain reasons. Currently our site is set up with content on almost every single page. The main catagory page, explains everything on the main page, then our products page has a lot of text too. But right now, it seems as if our main pages are only ranking. In the near future I will be using a cms and purchasing a template. I noticed most Ecommerce style websites have just the product with the name and price, then when they click on the product it brings you to that page with a brief product description and some photos. My question is, does each page need content? Or can just the product page itself have content? For example, say we have a link to SHOES. Then the shoes page displays dress, casual and athletic. Then the athletic page brings you to a page with, running, tennis, cross training shoes, and so forth. Is it best to write content on this main catagory page? If so, how much? Or should we focus on putting content on the actual page of the individual product? Along with pictures and specifications? I know Content is Key and we are doing pretty well at that, however, I am starting to wondering if we have to much content or too similar content. What is the best structure to try and recieve GREAT organic rankings?
On-Page Optimization | | hfranz0 -
What is the best solution for printable product pages (duplicate content)?
What do you think is the best solution for preventing duplicate content issues on printable versions of product pages? The printable versions are identical in content. Disallow in Robots.txt? Meta Robots No Index, Follow? Meta Robots No Index No Follow? Rel Canonical?
On-Page Optimization | | BlinkWeb1