Hiding links from Google.

What methods of linking will Google ignore?

[davep]

What methods of linking will Google ignore?

I want to cross-link some sites I run (to aid user navigation) - but I am worried about being penalised for heavy cross linking as the sites are hosted on the same IP.

I read in another post about using javascript - but I'd like to avoid that if possible.

At the moment, I use a redirection script like this: a link to http://www.mysite.com/redirect.php?id=site2 will redirect to http://www.myothersite.com/. Will Google follow that link?

[jamesyap]

There are many ways. Such as -

1. Using Javascript Link (googlebot won't follow javascript link)

2. Using form submit button (google won't follow form)

3. Use a redirect script but in the redirect script add a meta robots tag to noindex,nofollow (search it in google to get the exact syntax tag) Googlebot will still read the file but it won't index and follow it.

4. Use a redirect script and use robots.txt to disallow your script. (RECOMMENDED!) googlebot won't even touch your script.

[davep]

thanks for the tips!

I think I'll go with your last suggestion - something I really should have thought of myself!

[jamesyap]

yeah, that's the most easy one, just a notepad will do!

[GoogleGuy]

Yah, robots.txt or meta tags are your friends.. Those should both work fine.

[MHes]

Hi

But does the robots and meta stop the spider following the link as well.... or just stop it indexing the linked page?

[djgreg]

IMHO
meta nofollow does not stop the spider from following the link, it only stops it from indexing the target page.
I'm not sure how it is with the robots.txt, but I think it should be the same problem.

[willtell]

We put external links on a separate page and use a meta tag of 'noindex,nofollow'. Seems to work fine as we don't get penalized for this.

[Jane_Doe]

We put external links on a separate page and use a meta tag of 'noindex,nofollow'. Seems to work fine as we don't get penalized for this.

I don't understand how to do this, but I'd like to learn. I know how to put in a noindex, nofollow tag, but how do you link from the page HTML to the external file with the link and the noindex, nofollow metatag?

Sorry if this is a stupid question. I've been using Javascript links to do this for now which I guess will soon be ineffective.

[pageoneresults]

A robots terms of nofollow allows the page to be indexed, but no links from the page are followed.

<meta name="robots" content="nofollow">

There are shorter versions of the Robots META Tag that you can use...

all
No restrictions on indexing the page, or following links from the page to determine pages to index. Equivalent to: index, follow.

Note: The Robots META Tag listed above (all) is a duplicate effort as this is the default setting for spidering robots. You do not need this tag if you want all spiders to index the content.

none
Robots are to ignore this page. Equivalent to: noindex, nofollow.

<meta name="robots" content="none">

Common Usage for the Robots META Tag
The most common use for the robots meta tag is for excluding content. Here are three (03) examples of using the robots meta tag correctly to exclude information from search services.

A robot terms of noindex allows the links on that page to be followed, even though the page is not to be indexed.

<meta name="robots" content="noindex">

A robots terms of nofollow allows the page to be indexed, but no links from the page are followed.

<meta name="robots" content="nofollow">

A robots terms of none is the same as noindex, nofollow. Neither the page or the links on that page will be followed or indexed.

<meta name="robots" content="none">

[pageoneresults]

We put external links on a separate page and use a meta tag of 'noindex,nofollow'. Seems to work fine as we don't get penalized for this.

Jane_Doe, willtell is actually building a separate page for their off site links. On that separate page they are including the robots tag mentioned to prevent links from being indexed and followed.

<meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow">

Which can be replaced with this shorter version...

<meta name="robots" content="none">

[Jane_Doe]

Okay, thanks, pageoneresults. I understand what he's doing now. I was wondering if there was an easy way to have an indexed page A link to indexed page B and not have the link spidered and not put the link to page B on a separate page with a noindex, nofollow tag.

[crumpeta]

Well, I have discovered that on my site
it will not follow links like these:

<td bgcolor="#5A739C" valign=middle align=center onClick="location.href='http://domain/index.html'" onMouseOver="this.style.cursor='hand';return true;"; onMouseOut="this.style.cursor='auto';return true"><a class=foo href="http://domain/index.html">link text</a></td>

[Jane_Doe]

What is a redirect script? Is that something I could do myself if I learned PHP?

[onionrep]

You cannot redirect client side with php.

You could do a server side redirect with php using the header() function.

header("Location: [someothersiteorpageelsewhere.com...]

[Jane_Doe]

>You could do a server side redirect with php using the header() function.

Thanks oniorep. I'm going to have to get myself a PHP book.

[getvisibleuk]

she won't follow dropdown links either.

I tested it on a multipage site that was only linking with dropdowns - no other pages had inbound links. The only page to be indexed was the homepage.