Forum Moderators: open
There's a redirecting URLs in my SERPs which points to my domain. It looks like a PPC search engine which shall remain nameless has allowed Googlebot in and he or she (what sex is googlebot anyway?) has put the link in the index. The URL is in the form:
www.example.com/folder/file.html?click=mydomainURL?searchenginename.
I can get my server to send a 404 by using this rewrite rule in the .htaccess file.
RewriteEngine on
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} nameless
RewriteRule ^$ /product1.html [L]
Since product1.html does not exist this returns a 404 error.
The question is will this get the URL removed from the index and is it better to get rid of it or leave it in?
My paranoia about this is because of it being seen as a dupe.
Many thanks for any input.
Best wishes
Sid
[edited by: Marcia at 12:45 pm (utc) on Feb. 12, 2004]
[edit reason] Examplified URL. [/edit]
For what its worth... and I'm no expert! I've had a similar thing but because I was busy and had no idea of what to do left it as is. Google seemed to sort it out itself and I certatinly wasn't penalised - disclaimer: - but this is all from patchy memory.
I'm sure tho there are others who can give you more qualified advise.
Any takers?
