[Foundation-l] Searchability of non-mainspace pages

Mon Apr 28 02:37:09 UTC 2008

On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 7:19 PM, Robert Rohde <rarohde at gmail.com> wrote:

>  On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 7:05 PM, Todd Allen <toddmallen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > What about developing a functionality where editors (or perhaps admins
> > and up only) could set an individual non-mainspace page to be
> > excluded? The vast majority of non-articlespace content is not
> > problematic, so the proposed sledgehammer solution seems a bit
> > overkill as compared to handling individual pages, and would certainly
> > be much less deleterious to the ability to use superior external
> > search capability while improved internal search is developed, while
> > still addressing the fact that some pages are problematic if they show
> > on search engines and allowing us to respond appropriately to
> > complaints and concerns about the same.
> >
>
> Something like a special keywork such as "__NOINDEX__" would be just about
> perfect.  Then it is could be embedded in templates and the like and placed
> on individual pages as appropriate.
>
> I generally agree with Todd that blocking search engines from all
> non-Article pages is effectively using a sledgehammer to kill a fly.
>
> -Robert Rohde
>

It appears the idea of a "__NOINDEX__" keyword is not a new one:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8068

-Robert Rohde