Noindex on news index pages: does it cause orphan pages?

[johnnie]

In order to prevent duplicate content issues, I have used "noindex, follow" to prevent my news index pages from being indexed. However, since my news articles are only linked to from these index pages, will google perceive my news articles as orphans now?

[tedster]

No, the "follow" instruction means Google can follow the links.

[johnnie]

Yes, but if you were to draw a link graph, you would find no indexed pages linking to them. The follow might allow for the pages to be *found*, but does a link from a noindex-page count as a full link?

[tedster]

Page Rank will flow "through" those noindex-follow pages. Remember, Google must index them privately behind the scenes in order to read the meta tag, right? They just don't make the pages part of the public search results.

Eric Enge: Can a NoIndex page accumulate PageRank?

Matt Cutts: A NoIndex page can accumulate PageRank, because the links are still followed outwards from a NoIndex page.

Eric Enge: So, it can accumulate and pass PageRank.

Matt Cutts: Right.

[stonetemple.com...]

[Wlauzon]

From what I understand, the only thing that Google and other SE's do with NOINDEX is not show the page in searches, all (or most) other factors don't change.

Not sure if non indexed pages have any PR or not?... NM... answered as I typed :)

[edited by: Wlauzon at 10:44 pm (utc) on Jan. 30, 2009]

[johnnie]

And what if certain pages are removed through WMT? Are these still regarded as passing pagerank?

[tedster]

Yes - those urls are removed from being returned in search results but still used "behind the curtain" for PR calculations.