showpost.php

I was wondering if there's an advantage to not having the showpost.php showing up in the sitemap?

I have given this thought since I said I was going to remove them from the sitemap and add the nofollow tag to it and I have come to a conclusion that it will not hurt you in the eyes of search engines like Google.

The reason I say this is that it is not duplicate content. It has a different url and different content than the showthread page. Duplicate means two of the same. showpost only includes one post out of the whole showthread page and vice versa.

So that is why I have kept them in the sitemap and not added the nofollow tag.

Anyone else disagree and got a reason why Google would find it as duplicate?

I wasn't really concerned with duplicate content I just was wondering if it would have a better effect with getting traffic on the thread because of the optimized URL.

If you look at the URL of a post http: // www. examplesite.com/forum/8505-post8.html it's not optimized but a thread starter http: //www. examplesite.com/forum/lounge/1466-when-do-people-visit-your-site.html has the keywords in the URL. If Google has less URLs to go through could it be that not having the showpost.php in the site map would possibly bring greater traffic to the threads?

I would think not. You still have the thread title inside the <title> tags plus the more content you have the better imo

Before posting this question I had left the showpost in place because I figured it woudn't hurt. I also agree with the more content the better.

Thanks for your reply