Will blocking urls in robots.txt void out any backlink benefits? - I'll explain...

[AubieJon]

Ok...

So I add tracking parameters to some of my social media campaigns but block those parameters via robots.txt. This helps avoid duplicate content issues (Yes, I do also have correct canonical tags added)... but my question is -- Does this cause me to miss out on any backlink magic coming my way from these articles, posts or links?

Example url: www.mysite.com/subject/?tracking-info-goes-here-1234

• Canonical tag is: www.mysite.com/subject/
• I'm blocking anything with "?tracking-info-goes-here" via robots.txt
• The url with the tracking info of course IS NOT indexed in Google but IT IS indexed without the tracking parameters.

What are your thoughts?

• Should I nix the robots.txt stuff since I already have the canonical tag in place?
• Do you think I'm getting the backlink "juice" from all the links with the tracking parameter?

What would you do?

Why?

Are you sure?

[josh-riley]

If you block with robots.txt link juice can't get passed along. If your canonicals are good, then ideally you wouldn't need the robots. Also, it really removes value of the social media postings.

So, to your question, if you have the tracking parameter blocked via robots, then no, I don't think you are getting the link juice.

http://www.rickrduncan.com/robots-txt-file-explained

When I want link juice passed on but want to avoid duplicate content, I'm more a fan of the no index, follow tags and using canonicals where it makes sense, too. But since you say your URLs with the parameters aren't being indexed then you must be using tags anyway to make that happen and not just relying on robots.

To your point of "are you sure":

http://www.evergreensearch.com/minimum-viable-seo-8-ways-to-get-startup-seo-right/

(I do like to cite sources - there's so many great articles out there!)

[Mark_Ginsberg]

I agree with what Andrea wrote above - just one additional point - blocking a file via robots.txt doesn't prevent the search engine from not indexing the page. It just prevents the search engine from crawling the page and seeing the content on the page. The page may very well still show up in the index - you'll just see a snippet that your robots.txt file is preventing google from crawling the site and caching it and providing a snippet or preview. If you have canonical tags put in place properly, remove the block on the parameters in your robots.txt and let the engines do things the right way and not have to worry about this question.

[AubieJon]

Thanks Guys...

Yeah, I figure that's the right path to take based on what we know... But I love to hear others chime in so I can blame it all on you if something goes wrong - ha!

Another Note: Do you think this will cause some kind of unnatural anomaly when the robots.txt file is edited? All of a sudden these links will now be counted (we assume).

It's likely the answer is no because Google still knows about the links.. they just don't count them - but still thought I'd throw that thought out there.