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Posts
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Dear Kriesi,
you write in the new 4.5: “improved: added rel=’nofollow’ to search link to avoid duplicate content in search engines”
Excuse me. Since when is “nofollow” the command to say a crawler, don’t index something?
This is the biggest nonsense ever, 3 steps back, but not an improvment.
What is the effect: On all your Enfold clients, all crawler and bots stop here, break down the crawling process of the whole pages and ends the crawling. Wow, that’s great. This has a good impact and benefit of all competitors of your Enfold users competitors. Wow. Great.
The same is, as you use h1- in breadcrumbs. Useless! A breadcrumb is not a h1-heading. It’s a breadcrumb, a small font sized breadcrumb for orientation.And nofollow: The name is, what this command do: NOFOLLOW!!!!!
NOFOLLOW WAS NEVER THE COMMAND TO SAY A BOT; DON’T Index it!!!! NOFOLLOW GIVES NOBODY THE CHANCE, TO CLEAR GOOGLE CACHE!!! Because: THE ROBOT WILL NOT FOLLOW!
The right command is: noindex,follow.
NOW, ALL your clients can put manually deindexing of this page of at GSC.
A nofollow would be nice, if user has a fresh, new website. But in this case: This is ugly.
If you were to go deeper into SEO, you would have done it differently.
John Müller from Google says what it’s like:
“So it’s kind of tricky with noindex. Which which I think is something somewhat of a misconception in general with a the SEO community. In that with a noindex and follow it’s still the case that we see the noindex. Snd in the first step we say okay you don’t want this page shown in the search results. We’ll still keep it in our index, we just won’t show it and then we can follow those links.
But if we see the noindex there for longer than we think this this page really doesn’t want to be used in search so we will remove it completely. And then we won’t follow the links anyway. So in noindex and follow is essentially kind of the same as a noindex, nofollow. There’s no really big difference there in the long run.”… On a long run!!! But not on indexed pages.
OH MY GOD
Example from yoast
Internal search results
Internal search results are like the last pages Google wants to point its visitors to. If you want to ruin a search experience, you link to other search pages. But the links on that search result page are still very valuable for Google, so all links should be followed. The robots meta setting should be:
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow">The same setting goes for all the examples mentioned above, there is no need to nofollow the links on these pages. Now, when should you add a nofollow to your robots meta tag?
Pages that you might want to nofollow
Google roughly indicates that there are three reasons to nofollow links:Untrusted content
Paid links
Crawl prioritizationHi,
Thank you very much for your feedback and all the details provided, we appreciate it a lot!
Best regards,
BasilisWould like to follow up with regards to the Enfold theme setting the search results to nofollow.
Is there a way to disable the Ajax search function from rel=nofollow to rel=follow as it is important for search engines to follow the link, but not necessarily index.
Thanks for your help.
Hi,
@HokusPocus: That attribute was not added to disallow robots from following the search results page. The attribute is only added to the search tooltip icon, which we suspect is causing duplicate content issue. More info here:
// https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/96569?hl=en
The actual search results page is still set to “noindex, follow”. It was modified in response to this thread:
// https://kriesi.at/support/topic/how-to-remove-s-from-search-url/
What is the effect: On all your Enfold clients, all crawler and bots stop here, break down the crawling process of the whole pages and ends the crawling. Wow, that’s great.
Do you have any reference for that?
Best regards,
IsmaelNot sure if your response was to HokusPocus, however, your answer really didn’t answer my response or question.
In referring to the article you mention from Google(https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/96569?hl=en),
“Nofollow” provides a way for webmasters to tell search engines “Don’t follow links on this page” or “Don’t follow this specific link.”
Further down the page, it explains that some of the cases which you would want to use “nofollow” would be:
1. Untrusted Content
2. Paid Links
3. Crawl prioritizationA “nofollow” on the search link really doesn’t meet any of those criteria and we also know that by placing a nofollow for internal links, sends a signal to search engines that the information it is linking to is questionable, which we don’t want to do as since it is internal content, we want it to be followed.
The attribute is only added to the search tooltip icon, which we suspect is causing duplicate content issue.
Also, I’m not sure I understand the philosophy behind implementing a change to the theme based on a suspicion, without further proof that it IS causing or fixing an issue.
In my case, I’m receiving an error message from within SEO software scanning that the search link in the menu is set to nofollow which is not advised.
If duplicate content is the issue, then I would think that a noindex would be the correct way to handle.
https://moz.com/learn/seo/duplicate-content
Just trying to understand and ensure that my sites are optimized to the best that they can be. Thanks for your help.
Hi,
A “nofollow” on the search link really doesn’t meet any of those criteria
I think it does make sense when you want to prioritize other content or redirect the crawlers. By adding the “nofollow” attribute to the search link, we are telling the crawlers not to follow, and in turn not index, the items on the search results page, which is reported to be causing duplicate contents. That is the whole intention of that modification. We are by no means SEO expert, so any suggestions from other users are welcome.
Under “3. Crawl prioritization”:
Using nofollow on these links enables Googlebot to crawl other pages you’d prefer to see in Google’s index.
=======================================================================================
If duplicate content is the issue, then I would think that a noindex would be the correct way to handle.
Thanks for the suggestion. Like I said, the search results page is already set to “noindex, follow”, but it’s still generating duplicated contents as reported by other users.
If you really want to change that attribute, edit the functions-enfold.php file, look for this code around line 124:
<a href="?s=" rel="nofollow" data-avia-search-tooltip="'.$form.'" '.av_icon_string('search').'><span class="avia_hidden_link_text">'.__('Search','avia_framework').'</span></a>Best regards,
IsmaelThanks, Ismael for the reply. Appreciate the input.
By adding the “nofollow” attribute to the search link, we are telling the crawlers not to follow, and in turn not index…
Just for clarification, nofollow and noindex serve two different functions.
NoFollow: provides a way for webmasters to tell search engines “Don’t follow links on this page” or “Don’t follow this specific link.”
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/96569?hl=en
NoIndex: prevents a page from appearing in Google Search by including a noindex meta tag in the page’s HTML code, or by returning a ‘noindex’ header in the HTTP request. When Googlebot next crawls that page and see the tag or header, Googlebot will drop that page entirely from Google Search results, regardless of whether other sites link to it.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93710?hl=enI’d be curious from the other users who are reporting the duplicate content, if they are using an SEO plugin, how they have it set up(if they have the archive, categories and tag pages set to noindex, what they may or may not be blocking in the ROBOTS.TXT file, etc.
Thanks for the updated code, will put in place and do some testing.
Dear Ismael,
lstoudenmire and I have already given you all the answers.
Your unqualified answer reflects your lack of knowledge. You connect your idea with the wrong, missing background knowledge and nonsensical answers.
Indexing is NOT prevented by NOFOLLOW. I already wrote that in the first thread, which you did not read. YOAST and John Müller also give you the answers. Likewise, the Google Help, which you do not understand properly. Especially what stands between the lines.
Your Comment shows all:
“By adding the” nofollow “attribute to the search link, we are telling the crawlers not to follow, and in turn not index, the items on the search results page, which is reported to be duplicate contents. “
1. Noindex is and was always the command to avoid duplicated content, to deindex existing content and to prevent indexing as much as possible.
From what source do you have this nonsense that Nofollow is used to prevent indexing? Right: You do not know and tell nonsense here. But Google clearly tells you
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93710?hl=en2. Google Say something quite clear:
Nofollow now also prevents the deindexing of existing content because the crawl is aborted: The crawl ends here because the crawler can no longer follow the page structure. At some point Goopgle realizes: OK, I can not get any further here … after the 3-10 crawl. Then the deindexing may take place. But that is not the solution that is always propagated. It is always: Noindex !!!3. Google tells you something else. Exactly, when Nofollow is applicable. And only then. And not as you think in your very individual interpretation
4. As an SEO service provider, my clients get reports. And they were always clean. Now I have to explain why there the site rating has deteriorated. There are now tons of warnings. Many thanks to Kriesi.
5. Why you do not allow the crawler to move freely, You also do not know it and can’t explain it with nonsense answers.
6. Noindex, used right away, would solve the problem of duplicate content. Here is the link from MOZ
https://moz.com/learn/seo/duplicate-content“It’s important that the duplicate page can still be crawled, even though you’re telling Google not to index it, because Google explicitly cautions against restricting crawl access to duplicate content on your website. (Search engines like to be able to see everything in case you’ve made an error in your code. It allows them to make a [likely automated] “judgment call” in otherwise ambiguous situations.)”
7. Just ask experts before you make such cuts (just like the H1 breadcrumb).
8. At no other premium theme I manage for clients, I see this nonsense.
9. And again: Instead of implementing optimal solutions: Again the recommendation of kriesi is to manipulate the functions.php. Looking back, it was a mistake to offer Enfold and Kriesi to my regular customers. Thus, you now have a regular customer less, the enfold has bought tons of you or has made customer orders with you. But that’s just the way it is when you have so many customers: Then Kriesi’s Customer Care moves into the background.
Cheers
Hi!
@Istoudenmire: Thanks for the info. We would be happy to hear about your findings.
@Hokuspocus: Thanks for the clarification. Yes, it’s all clear that you have to use “noindex” if you don’t want bots to index this and that page and “nofollow” if you want to prioritize other content or you don’t want crawlers to go that way and prioritize other content instead. One question though. How would the crawlers index the page where the link is supposed to redirect if they can’t follow it? And according to Yoast, you should not index the search results page, so why would it hurt your ranking if you’re telling the crawlers not to follow unwanted content, which is why that change is created in the first place.
// https://yoast.com/blocking-your-sites-search-results/
And adding the “nofollow” link makes much more sense, if you take into consideration the crawl limits Google imposed for every sites they crawled.
// https://yoast.com/crawl-budget-optimization/
// https://www.seroundtable.com/google-drops-crawl-limits-in-search-console-25262.htmlNofollow now also prevents the deindexing of existing content because the crawl is aborted: The crawl ends here because the crawler can no longer follow the page structure.
I see your point about deindexing though. Do you have any resources about that?
Again, as stated, we are not SEO experts, so what we provide here comes from third party resources or from the documentation itself. Please feel free to correct us, if we are wrong. ;)
Best regards,
IsmaelIt’s a monologue. You are not listening.
You exchange facts and insert some additional arguments and you are too proud to see your nonsense. You want to save face with all your might. But you are deepening more and more in a chain of nonsense.
You were always concerned about duplicate content: Noindex is and remains the commandhttps://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93710?hl=en
https://moz.com/learn/seo/duplicate-contentNow you’re telling some nonsense about crawl prioritization. The Google Bot is not stupid. He’s looking for the important content. But he wants to know everything about the page. A nofollow is always a bad sign
You quote Yoast: Where does it say Nofollow? Nowhere. What does it say:
I believe nowadays, using a noindex, follow meta robots tag is the way to go instead.
Then it goes on:
You quote:There is a link to it:
What does it say:
If you want to reliably block a page from showing up in the search results, you need to use a meta robots noindex tag. That means that, in order to find the noindex tag, the search engine has to be able to access that page, so don’t block it with robots.txt.
And than, you post a link, which not cover the topic:
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-drops-crawl-limits-in-search-console-25262.htmlWhat is there? The “fetch as google” option in search console is mentioned.
You have no idea, what you say. Embarrassing
If you don’t have a clue, you’ll get some arguments out of the bag. Even if they don’t fit at all anymore. Embarrassing.Hi!
I do understand what you’re trying to say and I’m not trying to argue. I’m actually enjoying this because I’m learning a lot, but I’m still confuse on where you get the “deindexing” thing. I think that’s the whole point of your reply above. You’re saying that we should not add the “nofollow” attribute to the search link because the crawlers won’t be able to get to the search results page and Google won’t be able to “deindex” the duplicate content. Is that correct? Now, I’m searching for the “deindexing” keyword but I can’t find it anywhere. Have you read any documentation about that?
Regards,
IsmaelIMO, by using the nofollow on the search link, it sends a signal to the search engines that the link should not be followed, which is not really what is required to fix a duplicate content issue.
“It is understandable why some bloggers – especially those with larger sites or those without the time necessary to go through a blog link-by-link – are opting to either nofollow all external links, or worse, nofollow ALL links, including internal ones.”
See: http://www.thesempost.com/dont-nofollow-all-links-for-outbound-link-manual-action-recovery/
We recommend making sure all internal links on a domain are marked as follow links. Search engines interpret internal nofollow links as a signal that content is being hidden.
“But John Mueller said on Twitter yesterday that your mobile internal linking structure does not have to be exactly equivalent but it should be crawlable.”
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-mobile-internal-link-structure-25012.html
See John Mueller video here:
https://www.hobo-web.co.uk/optimize-website-navigation/“Google Generating Search Pages on Your Site?
Google has begun entering search phrases into search forms, which may waste PageRank & has caused some duplicate content issues. If you do not have a lot of domain authority you may want to consider blocking Google from indexing your search page URL. If you are unsure of the URL of your search page, you can conduct a search on your site and see what URL appears. For instance,The default WordPress search URL is usually ?s=
Adding
User-agent: *
Disallow: /?s=
to your robots.txt file would prevent Google from generating such pages .See: http://tools.seobook.com/robots-txt/
In the following example, it’s referring to the noindexing of the search results pages, which the website administrator should handle with blocking in the robots.txt OR through the SEO plugin of their choice. It doesn’t mention anything about setting the search link to nofollow:
See: https://www.shoutmeloud.com/on-page-seo-checks-need-conduct-periodic-basis.html“An example of a low-value page would be the ‘search result’ page. You might have a search box on your site, and there is a possibility that all search result pages are being crawled and indexed. All these pages contain nothing but links, and hence are of little to no value. It is best to keep these pages from getting indexed.”
Further down the page, you’ll find the following referring to multiple versions(otherwise known as “duplicate content”:
“Another example would be the presence of multiple versions of the same page in the index. This can happen if you run an online store and your search results have the option of being sorted.
Here’s an example of multiple versions of the same search page:
– http://sitename.com/products/search?q=chairs
– http://sitename.com/products/search?q=chairs&sort=price&dir=asc
– http://sitename.com/products/search?q=chairs&sort=price&dir=desc
– http://sitename.com/products/search?q=chairs&sort=latest&dir=asc
– http://sitename.com/products/search?q=chairs&sort=latest&dir=descYou can easily exclude such pages from being indexed by disallowing them in Robots.txt, or by using the Robots meta tag. You can also block certain URL parameters from getting crawled using the Google Search Console by going to Crawl > URL Parameters.”
Again, it doesn’t mention anything with regards to setting the link to the search results page as a nofollow.
Hopefully, the above will provide further information. Maybe it would be beneficial for the theme developers to consult with an SEO expert such as Michael Torbert or Joost de Valk. Just a suggestion.
Below are two examples of the error from two different SEO Tools:
Hi,
My mistake. I misunderstood the previous thread. The “rel=nofollow” attribute was not added to fix duplicate content, it was added in an attempt to fix duplicate url or to remove the “?s=” query from the search page URL.
// https://kriesi.at/support/topic/how-to-remove-s-from-search-url/
same problem for me: I detected it using Screaming Frog and I was alerted for duplicate titles, so I discovered duplicated URL with ?s=.
I’ll forward the thread to our developers.
Best regards,
IsmaelWanted to check back in on this thread to see if the information had been shared and if any feedback yet. Thanks.
Hi,
Yes, we’ve had a short discussion regarding the issue and our developers decided to add a filter called “avf_nav_search_icon_nofollow” so that users can modify the attribute of the search link if they wanted to.
$nofollow = apply_filters( 'avf_nav_search_icon_nofollow', 'rel="nofollow"', $items, $args );It can be used like this:
add_filter( 'avf_nav_search_icon_nofollow', function( $att ) { $att = ''; return $att; }, 10, 1 );That code will remove the rel attribute of the search link. These changes are not implemented yet, so you have to remove the attribute manually for now as suggested on the previous reply.
Best regards,
IsmaelIf I’m understanding correctly, the `add_filter( ‘avf_nav_search_icon_nofollow’, function( $att ) { $att = ”; return $att; }, 10, 1 );
` should be added to the functions.php file, correct? If so, does an option to disable the rel=nofollow appear within the theme or does is it applied from the functions.php?I have cleared server and browser cache and reset permalinks, however, the rel=nofollow is still in the code.
Thanks for your help.
Hi,
Yes, you have to add it in the functions.php file but that filter is not available yet, so you have to modify the code manually for now. It should be available on the next patch.
Best regards,
IsmaelOK, I’ve modified the child’s theme functions.php by adding the `add_filter( ‘avf_nav_search_icon_nofollow’, function( $att ) { $att = ”; return $att; }, 10, 1 );
` code.Is that all that needs to be done at this time until it is included in a future patch to remove the nofollow from the search?
Thanks.
Dear Ismael.
Many clients are cooks, bankers, brokers etc. They don’t want to manipulate anything. They don’t have the knowledge. They want easy stuff. They want to have a toggle switch to turn it off. Also they don’t want to have your tens of thousands of “function.php” modifications after every update. I’m also not for my more than 15 Enfold clients.
Please insert in ENFOLDs SEO Options a toggle switch to change this.
And please: Implement also a switch to deactivate h1 in the breadcrumbs. H1 in the breadcrumbs is the same nonsense.A breadcrumb is a breadcrumb, a small link text. This is no heading. A heading is individual for every page, bigger as any other text and contain sentences or phrases and not the page title alone.
Thx
Hi!
@tangerinemoons: You have to remove the attribute from the functions-enfold.php file directly, at least for now, as previously suggested here:
@HokusPocus: Thank you for your inputs. I’m sure you can handle adding that filter for your clients, but we’ll take that into consideration. I’ll forward it to our developers.
Best regards,
IsmaelThanks for the additional info @Ismael. Have a great weekend.
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