: How to add "low quality user generated content" without affecting the SEO of the entire site? I have a blog with around 50 posts and it has a fair amount of organic traffic. There is a

@Barnes591

If you will not let the forum to be index by Google then there will be no issue. You can have links from the blog to forum and forum to blog.

Example:


example.com => Blog
example.com/forum/ => Forum


Additionally, you may like to let the blog be read by Google and but keep all links in the blog as 'no follow' and you can do basic monitoring and see if you may have a positive impact on the entire site.

If you got low visit blog then most likely it won't be that popular overnight. So, i would say it might be better to see the opportunity in the forum.

Generally, forum ranks well unless it is spammed badly. The reason Forum ranks well because it generally solves problem and user tend to visit regularly and stays longer.

So, i would think positive and will let the forum to crawl by Google.

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@Miguel251

I see no problem with that. Use canonicals to show strict hierarchy of your blog<>forum and content with poor links won't affect your overall SEO

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@Smith883

No-indexing the forum will mean it is not indexed for any purpose. Only indexed pages count towards penalties and rankings.

Pages marked noindex, by definition, are not in the index. Google uses the index for determining ranking and penalties. If a page isn't in the index, it can't be used for/against the site.

Google recommends using noindex for pages which Google has marked low quality and that one should be in the process of rewriting:


If you have entries that you want to rewrite, then using a noindex meta tag sounds like a good solution.


Can I use the NOINDEX meta for exclude low-value pages from google? Reply from JohnMu Google Employee, Webmaster Central Help Forum

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