Not a bug Google crawler indexing “Quote” reply button links

[Tokens]

Affected version

2.3.7

It looks like Google’s crawler is detecting the “Quote” reply button as an indexable link. Since it’s just a functional UI element used for quoting posts, it shouldn’t be treated as a navigational or content link.


This is likely causing unnecessary crawl activity and could lead to redundant entries in the index.


Expected behavior:
The “Quote” reply button should include rel="nofollow" or data-noindex to prevent crawlers from following or indexing it.


Example:
Inspecting the “Quote” button in post actions shows it as a standard anchor (<a&gt tag without nofollow or data-noindex, allowing Googlebot to treat it as a link.


Suggested fix:
Add either:

rel="nofollow"

or

data-noindex="true"

to the quote action links in post controls.

This is an example link that is being crawled...

https://www.sitename.com/forums/threads/thread-title.100/reply?quote=1

 

[Xon]

This only shows up if you have enabled guest posting

 

[Tokens]

This only shows up if you have enabled guest posting

I didn't think about that, thank you.

I am currently testing out allowing guests to post (moderated, of course). Perhaps I'll hide those buttons from guests manually in a template edit If I decide to keep allowing guests to post. Otherwise limiting guest posting should fix the issue.

Again, thank you @Xon.

 

[Jeremy P]

We do set nofollow on them already, so if they are displayed to guests then its kind of up to the crawler to respect that or not.

 

[dethfire]

There is incredible crawl bloat in default XF you can see from GSC reports. I have blocked quote links in robots.txt

 

[Digital Doctor]

I have blocked quote links in robots.txt

Can you outline for others how you did that ?

 

[Mr Lucky]

Can you outline for others how you did that ?

But if they are no follow, as stated above, what more can be done I wonder?

 

[dethfire]

But if they are no follow, as stated above, what more can be done I wonder?

Google hasn't been respecting that suggestion for years. They are URL hungry.

User-agent: *
Disallow: /*?quote=

 

[Mr Lucky]

Google hasn't been respecting that suggestion for years. They are URL hungry.

Yes of course, so why would they respect anything else in robots.txt

Or have you found they do respect your

User-agent: *
Disallow: /*?quote=

 

[dethfire]

Yes of course, so why would they respect anything else in robots.txt

Or have you found they do respect your

User-agent: *
Disallow: /*?quote=

Yes they still respect robots.txt for the most part. I can see the quote URLs in the robots gsc report.

 

[Chromaniac]

i truly dislike the mess tbh.



google keeps on sending me updates about 'known pages' and not 'submitted pages'. i mean why would you alert me about links you found through whatever route. i submitted pages which i want indexed. they won't index them. but would keep on complaining about temporary links xenforo has and are properly blocked through robots/noindex route. the above warning was about **** ton of links in the format forum.tld/css.php?css=__SENTINEL__&s=42&l=1&d=XXXXXXXXXX.