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Here’s a great question for the Ask an SEO series by Matt Inertia. Matt writes:
Question
“Hi Chris,
I have a question for you which I’ve been trying to figure out for a few months.
If I disallow a page in robots.txt that I don’t want (or need) in the index (terms and conditions, privacy statements, logins etc) those pages are eventually removed from the Google index and their PageRank toolbar turns gray. This would indicate that those pages are not crawled or indexed and therefore do not build a PageRank.
But, is this really the case? If I am removing pages from the index using robots.txt am I inadvertently wasting PageRank by linking to those pages? Is the only way to effectively remove pages from the index and stop them building PageRank by adding nofollows to all the disallowed pages incoming links as well? I know that pages are given a gray tool bar when disallowed in robots.txt but is this a lie?!
This leads me on to the next question! Do nofollow attributes accurately cause the pages PageRank do be redistributed to the remaining followed links on that page?
Any thoughts would be appreciated!”
Answer
Thanks Matt,
The gray in your toolbar is not a lie. Google will not serve those pages in search results if you properly noindex them in your robots.txt. I’ve personally found Google to be quite obedient of the robots.txt files. But other bots might not be as polite :-)
It is best practice to nofollow links to your privacy policy and other non-relevant pages to pass PageRank only to the more important pages. The practice is known as PageRank Sculpting, or PageRank Siloing. I would definitely add the nofollow attribute to the links to those pages if you are looking to silo your PageRank to the most important pages. It does work.
Cover both bases to be safe, but don’t bother adding nofollow to the meta tags of those pages you are looking to keep out of the index. If for some crazy reason they get an IBL (inbound link) from an external site, you still want to pass that pop on to the rest of your site.
Don’t forget guys and gals, if you need some FREE SEO ADVICE then drop me a line. It’s FREEEEEEEEE!
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Leave YOUR Comments!
Monetizing your Pagerank | No Treason Says:
January 26th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
[...] Ask an SEO – Wasting Pagerank on Noindex Pages | Chris Hooley’s … [...]
Matt Inertia Says:
January 27th, 2009 at 3:27 am
Cheers Chris! From my experience Google obeys robots instructions very well. Here’s a little extra literature I found about the question: http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-matt-cutts.shtml
MattC – “Now, robots.txt says you are not allowed to crawl a page, and Google therefore does not crawl pages that are forbidden in robots.txt. However, they can accrue PageRank, and they can be returned in our search results.”
So, we know that noindex pages can build PageRank from external links that they happen to pick up but what matt doesnt make clear is whether the pages can accrue PageRank from internal links?
There is also a mammoth thread about the matter here: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3804067.htm
Cheers again!
Web Technology » Blog Archive » SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 27, 2009 Says:
February 9th, 2009 at 1:18 am
[...] Ask an SEO – Wasting Pagerank on Noindex Pages, Chris Hooley [...]
Natural SEO Says:
April 16th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
You probably know that Nofollowing links to internal pages is rather questionable practise, which many experienced SEOs do not approve, as it can affect (impeed) the link flow in often uncontrollable ways.
Besides, on large sites with 1000’s dynamic pages nofollwoing is extremely hard to employ. So essentially, even if it works fine, it’s mostly suitable for small-medium size websites.
And the last but not the least – pagerank is no longer that important for rankings, so even if you do manage to distribute PR wisely to the most important pages – it’s unlikely to give those pages substantially higher rankings.
So why bother then and waste your time on this job at all?
what ar you thoughts on this?
Regards,
Andrew
SnapHow.com Says:
May 8th, 2009 at 12:58 am
This tip is probably the most powerful one on increasing PageRank.
Make at least three pages on your site and link them as follows:
Page 1 >>>>>> Page 2
Page 2 >>>>>> Page 3
And this is the kicker
Page 3 >>>>>> Page 1
Google will give points to page 2 from page 1, then to page 3 from page 2, and then – if you link it back to page 1 – it starts all over again. I can’t even count how many points this will end up giving you. Just don’t abuse it too much – or the big sites will complain you are taking too much PR from them.
Regards
Debajyoti Das
Qingtian Says:
May 18th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
There are so many controversial debate out there about this question. I do agree that pagerank is no longer that important for rankings. But it still plays a relatively important role on it. For me, I would choose to add the nofollow attribute to the links.
Edinburgh Architect Says:
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:39 pm
I read the article on Page Rank Siloing and am about to get to work on my own site. But I am worried about the comments made by Natural SEO and Qingtian, am I waisting my time? Is there something more productive I can do. I just found out about page rank last month and now I hear its not all that relevant!