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Disable the Printable version to avoid duplicate?

This is a discussion on Disable the Printable version to avoid duplicate? within the General Discussion forums, part of the vBSEO SEO Plugin category; How do I stop the spiders from indexing the printable version of a thread? I am concerned about duplicate threads ...

  1. #1
    Junior Member
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    superiormuscle
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    Disable the Printable version to avoid duplicate?

    How do I stop the spiders from indexing the printable version of a thread? I am concerned about duplicate threads in the search engines. From what I can tell vBSEO version 3.1 allows the spiders to index the printable version of a thread correct?

    Thanks for your help.

  2. #2
    vBSEO.com Webmaster Mert Gökçeimam's Avatar
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    Hello ,

    I personally donot rewrite printable urls and block printthread.php within robots.txt

    However vBSEO adds rel="nofollow" tags to print thread urls. Make sure you have the following setting set to Yes within vBSEO Control Panel

    Add rel="nofollow" to the Printthread links?
    Enable this option to prevent search engines from following links to Printthread. It is thought that printable versions of threads (printthread.php) may be considered "duplicate content" by search engines and possibly penalized or excluded.
    Mert Gökçeimam / Crawlability Inc.

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  3. #3
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    I take a slightly different approach myself.
    • Disable in robots.txt
    • Disable all vBSEO rewriting for printhread.php
    • Remove printhread.php from server
    • Open 'printthread' template and delete all contents and save
    • Search and replace in templates for printthread.php - I believe that are 2 templates (one of which is showthread) where you will need to remove the link to printthread.php
    It may be a little OCD, but better safe than sorry - works for me with zero printthread.php URL's indexed.

    You don't really need a printable version these days anyway - when you can PDF a thread instead. Plus it's good to do your part to reduce carbon emissions and encourage your users to waste less paper, ink and electricity printing your threads - besides, with a printed copy (if they felt a need to print), users are unlikely to return to that thread again anyway (which isn't good for you).

  4. #4
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    Matthew - that sounds comprehensive, certainly redundant/OCD, and no doubt extremely effective!

  5. #5
    Junior Member
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mert Gökçeimam View Post
    Hello ,

    I personally donot rewrite printable urls and block printthread.php within robots.txt

    However vBSEO adds rel="nofollow" tags to print thread urls. Make sure you have the following setting set to Yes within vBSEO Control Panel

    Add rel="nofollow" to the Printthread links?
    Enable this option to prevent search engines from following links to Printthread. It is thought that printable versions of threads (printthread.php) may be considered "duplicate content" by search engines and possibly penalized or excluded.
    I cant seem to find that option for printthread. These are the options I see in my vbseo control panel. I have them all set to yes.

    Add rel="nofollow" to ALL Sorting Links
    Enable this option to prevent search engines from following links to pages with the same content, but sorted differently. These pages might be tagged as "duplicate content". Therefore, we recommend enabling this feature.

    Add rel="nofollow" to ALL Dynamic Pages
    Enable this option to prevent search engines from following ALL dynamic links. Some examples are: 'Post Reply' links, 'Quote' links and 'Quick Reply' or 'Search' links. These pages have non-relevant (or "noise") content which should not be indexed by search engines , resulting in better SEO.

    Add rel="nofollow" to Links pointing TO Member Profiles FROM Postbit
    Enable this option to prevent search engines from following links to member profiles found in posts.

    Add rel="nofollow" to Links pointing TO Member Profiles FROM Forumhome
    Enable this option to prevent search engines from following links to member profiles found in your Forum Homepage.

    Add rel="nofollow" to ALL External URLs
    Enable this option to prevent search engines from following links to external pages (URLs that point to other domains).

  6. #6
    vBSEO.com Webmaster Mert Gökçeimam's Avatar
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    Please search for Advanced Settings (+ / -) within vBSEO Control Panel and click + to expand settings. You can find the setting over there.
    Mert Gökçeimam / Crawlability Inc.

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  7. #7
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    i simply cannot find an advanced settings option. can you give me a better idea of where it is in the vbseo control panel? thanks

  8. #8
    vBSEO Staff Juan Muriente's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by FleaBag View Post
    • Disable all vBSEO rewriting for printhread.php
    • Remove printhread.php from server
    • Open 'printthread' template and delete all contents and save
    • Search and replace in templates for printthread.php - I believe that are 2 templates (one of which is showthread) where you will need to remove the link to printthread.php
    The nofollow appears to be equally effective. Notice how there are no printable versions indexed for vBSEO.com.

    It's not the case in out-of-the-box vB though.
    Juan Muriente / Crawlability Inc.
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  9. #9
    vBSEO.com Webmaster Mert Gökçeimam's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by superiormuscle View Post
    i simply cannot find an advanced settings option. can you give me a better idea of where it is in the vbseo control panel? thanks
    Please browse through URL Rewrite Settings within vBSEO Control Panel and couple lines below you'll see advanced settings
    Mert Gökçeimam / Crawlability Inc.

    Yeni vBSEO Kontrol Paneli ve vBSEO 3.5 Yayın Tarihleri

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  10. #10
    vBSEO Staff Juan Muriente's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by superiormuscle View Post
    i simply cannot find an advanced settings option. can you give me a better idea of where it is in the vbseo control panel? thanks
    It's turned 'ON' with vBSEO default settings anyways, so we got you covered.

    Still, 'ts not a good testament to our interface's usability the fact that you haven't been able to find it. - We plan to fix this of course.
    Juan Muriente / Crawlability Inc.
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  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mert Gökçeimam View Post
    Please browse through URL Rewrite Settings within vBSEO Control Panel and couple lines below you'll see advanced settings
    that only expands the rewrite settings. it dosent give me any more options for the nofollow section.

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by Juan Muriente View Post
    It's turned 'ON' with vBSEO default settings anyways, so we got you covered.

    Still, 'ts not a good testament to our interface's usability the fact that you haven't been able to find it. - We plan to fix this of course.
    haha, ok thanks.

    something else i was wondering, i have noticed in the last few days since installing vbseo, google seems to have indexed a lot of my members profiles. should this be happening? I mean, the members profiles aren't really content that is relevant to my site. should i stop the user profiles from being indexed by the search engines or is this not a good idea?

    thanks for the help..
    Last edited by superiormuscle; 01-07-2008 at 08:27 PM.

  13. #13
    vBSEO Staff Juan Muriente's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by superiormuscle View Post
    should i stop the user profiles from being indexed by the search engines or is this not a good idea?
    There's nothing wrong with having Google give your member profiles some love. If you track your referral stats closely you'll see that some people are actually finding you while searching for usernames on the net, after all, 53% of webnauts do vanity searches on a daily basis .

    And I don't think that the fact that search engine values this content will be a reason for "devaluing" your other content. Although I once heard a theory that supports the opposite.

    I wouldn't stop spiders from indexing user profiles, much less now with the enhanced profiles in vB 3.7 that should encourage richer, more diverse content within those pages.
    Juan Muriente / Crawlability Inc.
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  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Juan Muriente View Post
    There's nothing wrong with having Google give your member profiles some love. If you track your referral stats closely you'll see that some people are actually finding you while searching for usernames on the net, after all, 53% of webnauts do vanity searches on a daily basis .

    And I don't think that the fact that search engine values this content will be a reason for "devaluing" your other content. Although I once heard a theory that supports the opposite.

    I wouldn't stop spiders from indexing user profiles, much less now with the enhanced profiles in vB 3.7 that should encourage richer, more diverse content within those pages.
    ok, i will let the spiders index them then.

    thanks for your help.

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