MonsterSmallBusiness Forums > Very Alarmed. "hide" Categories & Products Still Shows U

Full Version: Very Alarmed. "hide" Categories & Products Still Shows U

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elgarble

Aug 23 2009, 02:14 PM

We are very alarmed. When we "Hide" a category or product, not only do we NOT want our visitors to see it, we also DO NOT want the robots to index or follow. It's supposed to be hidden.

I was shocked to look at the source code of a couple of categories and products that we checked "hide" only to discover the following:

<meta NAME="robots" CONTENT="index,follow">

We hide things for a variety of reasons:
1. Page under development and we're experimenting - it is NOT to be seen by anyone.

2. Seasonal promotion with a discount code for our newsletter subscription receipients.

3. Private promotions for our wholesale brick and mortar customers, which only they are to see.
etc

Here's what I need to know ASAP:

1. Why when we "hide" is

still allowing search engines to index and follow?
2. How can I get into <head> </head> and change it to no index, no follow ASAP?
3. Why is this allowed to happen and when will

fix it?

We have been long-term customers, rarely contact customer support, rarely complain, have recommended

to a lot of people, but lately, getting so alarmed. This is important and please do not brush us aside with an excuse. This is easily fixable. We do not ask for much. We can even do it ourselves if you give us FTP access to <head>.

This is urgent.

totlcomp

Aug 24 2009, 07:46 AM

I'd like to know as well - we hide products & categories all the time, often for the same reasons as described by elgarble. I need to know that those products & categories are actually hidden .

ArcoJedi

Aug 25 2009, 12:24 PM

QUOTE(elgarble @ Aug 23 2009, 03:14 PM)

We are very alarmed. When we "Hide" a category or product, not only do we NOT want our visitors to see it, we also DO NOT want the robots to index or follow. It's supposed to be hidden.

Hiding a product or category hides the link to that page from category navigation or search pages.

QUOTE

I was shocked to look at the source code of a couple of categories and products that we checked "hide" only to discover the following:
<meta NAME="robots" CONTENT="index,follow">

This element in the <head /> area is not editable. One easier way to implement this would be to add the category URL to your robots.txt file.
http://www.men-uusa.com/robots.txt
You should be able to download this file from your file manager. Search engines pay just as much attention to the /robots.txt file as they do to the <meta /> tags. If you want to disallow a specific category, just add:

CODE

Disallow: /index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=999

- at the bottom of that text file and re-upload it. You might be interested to know that the <meta /> robots tag is not used in version 7.

QUOTE

3. Why is this allowed to happen and when will

fix it?

For more information on the future of version 4.x, you will want to see this post. You can request a free software upgrade to version 7 here.

totlcomp

Aug 25 2009, 01:09 PM

That's a good suggestion James - i didn't think of adding the categories to the robots file. Is there any downside to having a robots.txt file with a lot of entries?

ArcoJedi

Aug 25 2009, 04:41 PM

QUOTE(totlcomp @ Aug 25 2009, 02:09 PM)

That's a good suggestion James - i didn't think of adding the categories to the robots file. Is there any downside to having a robots.txt file with a lot of entries?

Good question, but there is no downside that I know of.

elgarble

Aug 26 2009, 03:13 PM

Thank you James!

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