How to handle "app" pages.

[andy.bigbangthemes]

Hey guys,

We've got an app - a drag & drop email builder -  and we are looking to improve our seo efforts. That being said - we're not sure how to treat pages of the app that wouldn't tell google nothing at all basically (loads of duplicate content, lorem ipsum, etc). They're pages that are used by the clients to build their own templates ex: builder pages they are extremely useful for our clients, but GGL wouldn't prolly make too much sense out of them.

That being said - rather randomly, before we nofollow noindexed them, some of them started ranking (probably given to the really great analytics data we have on them. Loads of clients, loads of time spent on page, etc).

Can we harness them in a better way, or just nofollownoindex them? I don't really see how they can be "canonicalised" since they don't really provide any quality content for Google. Much like MOZ's keyword explorer tool for ex. Mucho quality for us - but not a google fan favorite content-wise.

Thanks for your help

[donsilvernail]

Andy,

I think these pages should be no follow no index. Even though they ranked at one point, there could be issues of duplicate content on other sites that you would not be able to control. Is it possible for people to post these emails onto their sites or embed them some way?

Do these pages eventually get deleted or should be eventually deleted? If so then definitely keep them no index no follow. The issue is if they get index then deleted, there will be rampant 404 errors too.

Thanks,

Don

[andy.bigbangthemes]

Hi Don,

Thanks for the help. The pages can't be embedded or changed by clients. They won't be able to copy the content anywhere. The problem is that some of the content is just lorem ipsum text - destined to show clients what can be done within the interface.

Thanks

[donsilvernail]

Its too risky to try and produce rankings from this. Its not really valuable content. So no follow no index

[andy.bigbangthemes]

Thank you so much for your help!