XF 1.1 What to do for 403 errors in GWT from goto/post?id=xxx links?

[DJ XtAzY]

So I have a bunch of Access Denied 403 errors in my Google Webmaster Tool. Most of the errors are related to goto/post?id=XXXX links, which comes from a quote box referring to the original post. Now I think most of these goto links point to posts that were already removed from public view. What should I do to prevent these errors from showing up in GWT? I don't think undeleting those posts is the right way to do it.

 

[Jeremy]

You could edit the appropriate quote BBCode template to add nofollow to those links

 

[ForexTalk]

You could edit the appropriate quote BBCode template to add nofollow to those links

Sorry to bump this old thread but I got the same problem as user above. Can you please explain more details about your fix?

Thanks.

 

[Jeremy]

Edit bb_code_tag_quote and find:

                    <a href="{xen:link 'goto/{$source.type}', '', 'id={$source.id}'}#{$source.type}-{$source.id}" class="AttributionLink">&uarr;</a>

Add a rel="nofollow" to the tag.

 

[cmeinck]

Edit bb_code_tag_quote and find:

                    <a href="{xen:link 'goto/{$source.type}', '', 'id={$source.id}'}#{$source.type}-{$source.id}" class="AttributionLink">&uarr;</a>

Add a rel="nofollow" to the tag.

Similarly, could you add a rel="noindex" tag? I've blocked /goto/ in robots.txt, but just like here at XenForo, Google seems to be indexing them.

Would it look like this?

<xen:if is="{$source}">
                    <a href="{xen:link 'goto/{$source.type}', '', 'id={$source.id}'}#{$source.type}-{$source.id}" class="AttributionLink" rel="noindex">&uarr;</a>
                </xen:if>

 

[Jeremy]

It would follow the same principle, yes.

 

[cmeinck]

If as in my case, they are indexed, you'd have to remove the robots.txt blocking. It's bizarre that Google indexes what amounts to a 301, even if it's blocked.

 

[Mike]

For reference, Google doesn't use noindex on links; it's a page level <meta> option. There isn't really a way to make a link that Google explicitly ignores. Nofollow is the best you can do, but it's not necessarily a guarantee that it won't follow it. Even robots.txt doesn't stop it from seeing the link (as evidenced by seeing them in the search results).

 

[Joe Link]

Is any of this recommended, or should we just put up with the errors in GWT?

 

[Cao]

Is any of this recommended, or should we just put up with the errors in GWT?

I can fix them.