[Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Searchability of non-mainspace pages

[David Goodman]

I would be very reluctant to use NOINDEX on any mainspace article
pages. If it is appropriate to have the article content, then it is
appropriate to index it in the most public way.
Other namespaces--even article talk pages--that's another matter. They
should normally be public, but in my view some of them not searchable
by google

On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 11:11 AM, Chad <innocentkiller at gmail.com> wrote:
> This already exists to some degree in Mediawiki by default. The
>  "noindex,nofollow" tags can be assigned per-namespace, so the
>  Wikipedia: namespace can easily be removed from search indexers
>  (ones that follow the standard, at least).
>
>  As far as assigning it on a per-page basis (ie: for the mainspace if
>  need be), I would think that either a magic word (like you said Jimbo:
>  {{NOINDEX}} or somesuch), or an extension (such as the url
>  blacklists) would be the way to go.
>
>  -Chad
>
>
>
>  On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 11:07 AM, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>  > Charles Matthews wrote:
>  >  > Well, maybe we should discuss the downside first. Not having project
>  >  > pages on Google would certainly impede my work. You know, some of us
>  >  > still develop articles, and so on.
>  >
>  >  This is a valid point, and I think it needs to be addressed in a couple
>  >  of ways:
>  >
>  >  1. First, narrowing the scope of the noindex request.
>  >
>  >  2. Second, finding out what it would take to improve internal search to
>  >  make it more usable for people developing articles and so on.
>  >
>  >  > Ah, but I do. Isn't it a better solution to blank some AfDs, than to
>  >  > say "the mission has to come second"? After all, really negative
>  >  > material should be off the site, not just harder to find.
>  >
>  >  I would support that for some kinds of pages, blanking should be the
>  >  default upon the close of discussion.
>  >
>  >  -----
>  >
>  >  I wonder how hard it would be to have a technical change whereby
>  >  articles could be tagged with a {{noindex}} template which would set the
>  >  meta headers appropriately.  This could be liberally applied to project
>  >  pages that may be magnets for bad behavior.
>  >
>  >  And then user space could be the only thing removed from google by default.
>  >
>  >  Thoughts?
>  >
>  >  --Jimbo
>  >
>  >
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-- 
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG