SEO - Google indexing member profiles, good or bad?

[mrb1972]

I noticed google has indexed all the members profiles of my site, is this a good or bad thing to happen in regards to SEO, I always thought it was best not to

 

[Carlos]

The thing about it is that Google can route your site - by standard, google wants you to have a roadmap somehow - so it's a good thing. However, it's a bad thing because spammers use it to game google's search engine - to attract more link clicks, ahem - backlinks. To the owner that owns the site, it's a bad thing, because it's a useless account... And it attracts more garbage.

 

[MagnusB]

It's a neither nor situation, I think. I disallow Google to index it, both for privacy issues and to stop my member profiles to pollute search results for my site. I want to focus on my actual content, not my members profiles. Also, it prevents any effect silent spam would have.

 

[cmeinck]

For years, I allowed this figuring it couldn't hurt. With the increase in spamming of profiles, it's simply not worth the risk. I'm aggressive in tracking down spammed accounts and deleting them. If a spammer visits your site and spams a profile, there is a chance he'll send crap links to your site to build up the link value. By removing access to Google bot in robots.txt, I tend to think it limits my exposure to bad neighborhood linking done by these spammers.

 

[mrb1972]

if i block google seeing members in robots.txt will it remove the ones already indexed?

 

[MagnusB]

No, you will have to request them being removed. It will stop from any new ones being added though.

 

[mrb1972]

No, you will have to request them being removed. It will stop from any new ones being added though.

ok can you do a batch removal? everything with "/index.php?members/" in the url or do I have to do one url at a time?

 

[MagnusB]

Remove the /members/ folder, just be sure to disallow it in robots.txt first, otherwise Google will deny your request.

 

[Brandon Sheley]

I'd suggest blocking profiles with your robots.txt file.
There is generally poor content on those pages, I'd rather have google focus on the real content.

 

[mrb1972]

Remove the /members/ folder, just be sure to disallow it in robots.txt first, otherwise Google will deny your request.

Does in matter if im using friendly urls or not, do I still use the /members/ folder in my robots.txt

 

[MagnusB]

Yeah, that is assuming full friendly URL's. I might be wrong here, but if you aren't using full friendly URL's, you need to remove them one by one.