How to block "print" pages from indexing

[dreadmichael]

I have a fairly large FAQ section and every article has a "print" button. Unfortunately, this is creating a page for every article which is muddying up the index - especially on my own site using Google Custom Search.

Can you recommend a way to block this from happening?

Example Article:

http://www.knottyboy.com/lore/idx.php/11/183/Maintenance-of-Mature-Locks-6-months-/article/How-do-I-get-sand-out-of-my-dreads.html

Example "Print" page:

http://www.knottyboy.com/lore/article.php?id=052&action=print

[SEODinosaur]

you can block in .robot text, every page that ends in action=print

[dreadmichael]

That would be great. Do you mind giving me an example?

[jennita]

Rather than using robots.txt I'd use a noindex,follow tag instead to the page. This code goes into the tag for each print page. And it will ensure that the pages don't get indexed but that the links are followed.

[SEODinosaur]

Theres more then one way to skin a chicken.

[SEODinosaur]

Try This.

User-agent: *

Disallow: /*&action=print

[SEODinosaur]

http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/robotstxt

[NakulGoyal]

I actually remember Lore from a while ago. It's an interesting, easy to use FAQ CMS.

Anyways, I would also recommend implementing Canonical Tags for any possible duplicate content issues. So whether it's the print or the web version, each one of them will contain a canonical tag pointing to the web url of that article in the section of your website.

rel="canonical" href="http://www.knottyboy.com/lore/idx.php/11/183/Maintenance-of-Mature-Locks-6-months-/article/How-do-I-get-sand-out-of-my-dreads.html" />

[dreadmichael]

Thanks Donnie. Much appreciated!

[jennita]

True but using robots.txt does not keep them out of the index. Only using "noindex" will do that.

[dreadmichael]

Ya it is actually really useful. Unfortunately they are out of business now - so I'm hacking it on my own.

I will take your advice. I've shamefully never used rel= canonical before - so now is a good time to start.

[NakulGoyal]

Yes, it's strongly recommended. It should be fairly simple to populate this tag with the "full" URL of the article based on the article ID. This approach will not only help you get rid of the duplicate content issue, but a canonical tag essentially works like a 301 redirect. So from all search engine perspective you are 301'ing your print pages to the real web urls without redirecting the actual user's who are browsing the print pages if they need to.

[Dr-Pete]

I have to agree with Jen - Robots.txt isn't great for getting indexed pages out. It's good for prevention, but tends to be unreliable as a cure. META NOINDEX is probably more reliable.

One trick - DON'T nofollow the print links, at least not yet. You need Google to crawl and read the NOINDEX tags. Once the ?print pages are de-indexed, you could nofollow the links, too.

[SEODinosaur]

Yes, but Rel=Canonical does not block a page it only tells google which page to follow out of two pages.The question was how to block, not how to tell google which link to follow. I believe you gave credit to the wrong answer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_link_element

This is not fair. lol

[SEODinosaur]

But the spiders still run on the page and read the canonical link, however with the robot text the spiders will not.

[SEODinosaur]

Although you are correct... there is still more then one way to skin a chicken.

[SEODinosaur]

Your welcome : )

[dreadmichael]

You are right Donnie. I've "good answered" you too.

I've gone ahead and updated my robots.txt file. As soon as I am able, I will use no indexon the page, no follow on the links, and rel=canonical.

This is just what I needed, a quick fix until I can make a more permanent solution.

[Dr-Pete]

Rel-canonical, in practice, does essentially de-index the non-canonical version. Technically, it's not a de-indexation method, but it works that way.

[jennita]

Josh, please read my and Dr. Pete's comments below. Don't nofollow the links, but do use the meta noindex,follow on the page.