Not a bug Cookie notice being indexed as page description

[Bimble]

Affected version

2.x

I've searched XF and this doesn't seem to have been reported, but I've found it affecting hundreds of XF2 sites out in the wild, so thought it best to mention it.

I built a test XF2 site and after Google indexed it I noticed a lot of the page listings has the description: "This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and ...." so I checked Google and sure enough lots and lots and lots of live XF2 site pages had the same issue: LMGTFY - http://bfy.tw/KiCl

Not sure if there is a simple fix, but how do we stop Google from doing this and looking at the page content instead?

 

[Bimble]

Seems to apply to forums and threads (thread example: http://eraser.heidi.ie/forum/threads/how-to-transfer-samsung-photos-to-huawei-mate-20-pro.13057/)

 

[Chris D]

The simple answer is, you can't stop Google from doing that.

Google doesn't index any particular piece of content to display in the snippet. It can display any of the content indexed on a given page. Google simply displays the snippet in the search results that it feels is the most relevant to the search terms. For example:



No mention of the cookie notice here because I searched for relevant terms.

 

[Bimble]

Why doesn't it do it with XF1 pages that have a cookie notice then?

 

[Bimble]