460319 - Don't index the contributors forum or off-topic forum in search results

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(support.mozilla.org :: Forum, task)

Description

[[:Cww]]

Now that we are more actively using the contributor forum and have an off-topic forum, we don't want those threads to show up if people are searching forums.  Also related, we don't want them to be indexed by Google so people don't land there accidentally when they're looking for support.  They shouldn't be getting support on either of those forums.

I assume this is doable by a robots.txt and/or a few tweaks to code.  Assigning to nkoth but Eric may be better?

Comment 1

[Nelson Ko [:nkoth]]

robots.txt makes sense, if it works with our urls (I think the forumId is in the query string, and we still want the main support forum to be indexed). <meta name="robots" content="noindex">
should work as well. -- simple addition to the header.tpl based on some conditions?

Comment 2

[E. Cooper [:ecooper]]

Attachment: No indexing on contributor or off-topic forums

I went with meta tags through head.tpl. robots.txt is an option, but in the past I've had better luck with meta tags when using dynamic urls. If there is a preference for using robots.txt, let me know.

The patch explicitly denies indexing on the contributor and off-topic forums only (viewing forum and viewing forum threads). I assume that's the desired outcome.

Comment 3

[Nelson Ko [:nkoth]]

Comment on attachment 344820 [details] [diff] [review]
No indexing on contributor or off-topic forums

committed alternative patch to r19476/r19477

Comment 4

[Stephen Donner [:stephend] Not actively reading bugmail]

Verified FIXED:

https://support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum.php?locale=en-US&forumId=4 has topics of: "horrible forum software", "word association game", and "...more a suggestion", among others.

http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-searchindex.php?locale=en-US&words=horrible+forum+software&sa= yields no results for the "Off-topic" forum, and neither does http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-searchindex.php?locale=en-US&words=word+association+game&sa=.