Need suggestion: Should the user profile link be disallowed in robots.txt
-
I maintain a myBB based forum here. The user profile links look something like this http://www.learnqtp.com/forums/User-Ankur
Now in my GWT, I can see many 404 errors for user profile links. This is primarily because we have tight control over spam and auto-profiles generated by bots. Either our moderators or our spam control software delete such spammy member profiles on a periodic basis but by then Google indexes those profiles.
I am wondering, would it be a good idea to disallow User profiles links using robots.txt?
Something like
Disallow: /forums/User-*
-
Maybe you should noindex user profile pages until they've been active on the site long enough that a) you're sure they're not a spam bot and b) they're actually active users, with some interesting information to share on their user page?
Like Shaliendra said, this is your call. It's really about your website goals, and what those user pages do for the site. Are you getting much organic traffic from user pages? If you aren't, it's probably easiest to just noindex all user pages. But if some profiles are bringing in organic traffic, I'd recommend that you add a noindex tag immediately, but remove it once someone has commented a few times.
Does that help?
-
I am only talking about user profile pages not the links inside them. I have already taken care of them.
Request others to please come up with suggestions.
-
If you are talking about user profile pages, it is your call.
If you are talking about links that users post in profile pages, use as signatures or use in threads, make sure to mark them nofollow.
Regards
-
Let me re-phrase my question a bit. Would it be a good idea to get the user profile links noindexed in the first place? or should we keep them indexed in Google?
-
Use meta="noindex" tag for the user profile pages. It is more effective.
Regards
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
-
When trying to sculpt an internal link structure, is there any point in placing text links to top level pages that are already in the main menu?
Does Google recognise a link in the content if there is already a link in the menu? My understanding is that Google only counts the first link it finds.
On-Page Optimization | | bittristo0 -
Need I add rel="dofollow" or not?
Hello, My website is http://www.vietnamvisacorp.com is using the href links without meta tag rel="dofollow" such as I am using . Should I put ref="dofollow" in this: Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | JohnHuynh0 -
Robots file include sitemap
Hello, I see that google, facebook and moz... have robots.txt include sitemap at the footer.
On-Page Optimization | | JohnHuynh
Eg: http://www.google.com.vn/robots.txt Sitemap: http://www.google.com/sitemaps_webmasters.xml
Sitemap: http://www.google.com/ventures/sitemap_ventures.xml Should I include my sitemap file (sitemap.xml) at the footer of robots.txt and why should do this? Thanks,0 -
Removing Tag Cloud to Decrease the number of On-Site Links?
I have website which has a tag cloud at the footer. This tag cloud or tag box has about 40 links pointing to different words(tags) pages. I believe that the tags are hardly ever clicked on by visitors, since its at the footer. If the tag cloud is removed would this decrease the number of on-site links? According crawl diagnostics summary I have 195 pages with too many links. Would removing it help? And what kind changes can I expect if they removed (seo wise)?
On-Page Optimization | | utesters0 -
Page Shaping - No Follow Links
It's my understanding that adding a nofollow tag to pages that aren't of significance to users can help with page shaping and directing google to the most important links on my home page. I have 4 links on my home page that I'm considering adding a nofollow tag to: Privacy Policy, Legal Policy, Anti-Trust Policy, and Help-Desk Because these links are in the footer on every page I think they're probably sucking up some useful link juice. It's doubtful that anyone would actually search for our privacy policy or legal policy to find our site. I'd rather the juice to spread to other pages of use. What do you guys recommend?
On-Page Optimization | | inhouseninja0 -
Image alt attribute vs. plain text in link?
I'm building a product category browsing page for a high-falutin' jewelry retailer where we display only product photos linking to individual product pages, without any text in the links. From an SEO and link-juice-passing perspective, is it most effective to embed the product titles as the alt attribute in each image, or to leave alt="" and use text substitutions (i.e. an inner which is css'd to display: none) within the <a>to help search engines accept my product titles as the link text with the most credibility?</a>
On-Page Optimization | | cadenzajon0 -
I need quality backlinks. Do they need to be similar to company website?
Our website seems to be well optimized. However I need to find more quality backlinks. I am having a hard time with this. Do backlinks have to related to the company? The reason I ask is because I can receive some links, but they do not relate to our company. BUT sometimes we have customers come to our facility and we book them a local hotel room and send them to near by restaurants. Is it ok to have local restaurants and local hotels links on our website and have them link to ours, on a page for customer visits. OR any other tips on receiving quality backlinks?
On-Page Optimization | | hfranz0 -
Links to subfolders
Hi everyone, I would like to know your opinion on this. Do you feel like optimizing, especially pointing links to a subfolder, e.g. www.domain.com/en/ (english language), should be the same as doing that for the main URL (another language)? That said, do you think all the domain will benefit from anchors to subfolders? Thanks a lot!
On-Page Optimization | | SEOpt0