Site architecture? I've got a free user report, that shoots back a page with their data for them to share with co-workers and friends.

[bwb]

Hi,

I have a site about to go online that users can run a free report that connects to their calendar app to get 12 months of statistics for their meetings, and then it shoots out a report.

So they go to a.com/freereport and they get back a.zom/freereport/report/xxxxxx

The content of those reports is different, but the structure is the same as it is a fun way to show off meeting stats to co-workers and friends. I don't see the point of Google indexing those as the traffic to those pages is going to be from social networks and viral, but I do want the backlink credit.

Will I get backlink credit if I nofollow that folder? I am having a hard time deciding what to do seo wise and would love some thoughts and advice, what would you recommend?

Do nothing fancy.

Mark the report folder no follow.

Try to do something with rel=cannonical to point those pages to the root page?

Thoughts?

[Keszi]

Hi there,

I believe the most logical implementation would be to use "noindex, follow" meta robots on these pages.

I wouldn't use canonical because it does not serve this purpose. Also make sure, these pages are not blocked via robots.txt.

[bwb]

Gotcha, but how do I still harness all the links to those reports?

IE. if I have 25,000 backlinks to those reports for people, if I mark them noindex, follow how will that affect the overall site? Will it still help the overall site rank or will it disregard those?

[Keszi]

In my experience, it will help the overall site, but still... do not expect a huge impact on these. URLs are shared, but I don't believe people will start to link to them except for private conversations.