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Update on Google Showing Excluded URLs as Sitelinks
April 23, 2008
A little over a month ago, I wrote about Google showing robots-excluded URLs as Sitelinks. Here's a shot of what Google showed for the query [seo speedwagon] in mid-March:
The ip login link was (and is) excluded via robots.txt. A month prior (in February), a link to one of our monthly archives -- a page with the robots "noindex" meta tag -- appeared as a Sitelink also.
Since then, the SERP has been cleaned up. I use the passive voice because I don't exactly know who to thank. Either the algo picked it up on its own, or someone hand-washed it. Either way, it looks better now:
I'm not sure if we're an isolated case, so if you have any examples of excluded URLs still showing up in Sitelinks, please let us know in the comments.
All posts by Erik Dafforn
posted by Erik Dafforn at April 23, 2008 08:12 AM
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Comments
Hi Eric,
Here's another example for you...
Google 'Conversion Rate Experts' - the 'Newsletter' Sitelink appears, even though it's got CONTENT="noindex,noarchive,nofollow".
I must admit, I'm not really bothered about it... just thought I'd back you up.
Posted by: Ben at April 24, 2008 04:56 AM
Ok, it takes google 1 month to update the serp, well I guess that okay..:-)
Posted by: pk at April 24, 2008 07:06 AM
Nice catch Ben! Keep and eye on it and let me know if/when it goes away, and I'll post an update about your site too.
Like you, I'm not particularly bothered by the specific incident, but the circumstance in general is mildly worrisome.
Posted by: Erik at April 24, 2008 10:07 PM
Is there something wrong with their algo? As far as I know, robots.txt commands spiders whether they will index or visit certain pages or not.. it's kinda weird but nothing to bother about it
Posted by: teamcreatives at May 6, 2008 08:37 AM