Can someone explain me why the Russian search engine "Yandex", is indexing the pages of user accounts (it shouldn't do it, at least for privacy reasons) and instead is slowly removing from the index the threads and posts saying that they are not "Canonical"?
Is there anything I can do to prevent this but the exact opposite?
Hi @rik,
Search engrains index User Profile Pages. The profile page is a public page, so they index it. wpForo has an option to disable profile page indexing. You can disable it in Dashboard > Forums > Settings > Features Tab. The option name is "Enable User Profile Page indexing".
Thank you for your kind answer but that flag has already been disabled for three years, it's the first of the things I went to check.
I report that it doesn't work or that its logic is reversed or that it interacts with other parameters.
GDPR violation!
Beyond this there is also the problem that the pages of posts and threads are considered as not canonical (at least by Yandex).
@rik,
It’s something that not possible. Please leave a URL to some Profile page. It must be disabled for search engines. Or maybe Yandex had indexed it when the option was not enabled.
You can find a profile page url in the image of the email received by Yandex annexed to the first post.
The Option is enabled from two / treee years, the post of the url added by Yandex if of two/three days ago.
@rik,
Now all is clear. You've disabled wpForo SEO so you don't have any control to your forum SEO. The whole SEO is crashed for your forum because you've disabled wpForo SEO and the Yoast is performing your forum part. And this is the BIG problem because Yoast and all other WordPress plugins see your forums and topics as a one page, they don't understand that you have hundreds of topics and forums under the main forum page, because wpForo is not based on custom post types.
That's why we've created a powerful wpForo SEO system to perform all dynamic SEO Titles, Descriptions, Canonical URLs and control index/noindex statuses. You've disabled all those and now you're blaming wpForo.
Please navigate to Dashboard > Forums > Settings > Features Tab, and enable these options asap:
- Enable wpForo SEO for Meta Titles
- Enable wpForo SEO for Meta Tags
Then go to Dashboard > Forums > Dashboard and click the [Delete all caches] button. And then delete all your cache plugins caches.
This may take Search Engines months to restore your SEO and get correct indexed pages with correct canonical URLs. The Profile URLs are also affected, they had not NOINDEX meta tag because you had disabled the wpForo SEO. It'll be enabled to and I have no idea when Yandex will understand it and remove all profile pages from already indexed data.
Related Topics:
- https://wpforo.com/community/wpforo-integration/what-is-the-best-seo-plugin-for-wpforo/#post-25016
- https://wpforo.com/community/how-to-and-troubleshooting-2/forum-seo/#post-7545
- https://wpforo.com/community/general-discussions/how-do-i-integrate-rank-math-with-wpforo/#post-29975
Thank you very much for the report and the explanations!
If you allow me, I suggest you to expand the explanations in the online documentation because everything you have written about these commands is practically zero.
Even the link "wpForo SEO" leads to a page where nothing you have explained now, here.
Therefore, those who use the Yoast Plugin are allowed to think that the forum's SEO options are simply redundant and useless and only risk slowing down the site.
Instead from what you have explained here comes to wonder why you have given users the ability to disable these two options that according to what explained here and now seem to be totally useless but even dangerous if you disable them.
But I have one big doubt that I need to confirm:
Are we sure that after activating the SEO functions of the forum, messages in password-protected areas (beta tester of products and software) cannot be indexed in any way by search engines? There is confidential information that must not be circulated at all.
@rik,
wpForo doesn't have password-protected pages. You can only protect the whole forum with password. So I don't follow you what password-protected pages you mean. If you mean private forums then all is ok. Private forums and topics are not accessible for search engines. You can create an example and check it as guest (not-loggedin user). The search engines are the same guests.
