T&C , Privacy policy .pages

Should I no-index privacy policy and T&C pages?

[Patchulee]

Hello,

We are launching a new website and I would like to know what the recommendations are regarding T&C, privacy policy ... etc pages?

Should we put those pages in noindex?
I have been spending my last hour reading some forums about this topic and found arguments for both no indexing and indexing... What would be the most updated recommendation?

The site will be really small at launch (few pages) and we will then add new content on regular basis.

Thanks for your help.

[goodroi]

Worry less about noindexing those pages and worry more about building good content pages.

I like to noindex or nocache those types of pages to make it harder for people to track the changes I make to those pages. That is more for legal reasons and less for SEO. In the big picture this is a low priority question. There are many other factors that will have a bigger impact on your website success.

[tangor]

Is there a reason to not index? This is a serious question.

[goodroi]

Some people are concerned that the words on the TOS & Privacy pages can change the theme of the website so they might noindex it.

I like to noindex it because I don't want to leave a trail of TOS & Privacy Policy changes in case one day I upset a lawyer that is bored and looking to file frivolous lawsuits.

People also tend to copy and paste these pages across their network of websites. If you are trying to avoid publicity of owning multiple websites you might not want someone to Google a string of text from one TOS page and then uncover all of your other sites using the same TOS template.

Not to mention if instead of hiring a lawyer to draft these pages for you, you just stole it from your competition, you might want to noindex this stolen content.

[not2easy]

I always have had these pages "noindex,noarchive" just because I can't imagine good traffic coming from them. The reasons goodroi mentions are also good and valid.