How to avoid getting printthread.php indexed in search results & how to remove same from google results ?

[SaN-DeeP]

Recently,
We found our printthread version of forum topics are getting indexed in google results, we have already added rel=nofollow to printthread pages from our showthread templates, but not sure how those are getting indexed in search results.

Can someone guide to stop this printthread pages from getting indexed in search results and also how to remove them ?

I guess, we might need to add rel=noindex attribute on printthread pages ?

Please guide
Thanks.

[BirdOPrey5]

Read up on a robots.txt file, it will prevent leigitimate search engines from indexing content you don't want indexed.

This is the file I use for my 3.8 forum

robots.txt

[BirdOPrey5]

If the attachment doesn't work, it is a txt file that contains:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /forums/vbadmincp/
Disallow: /forums/clientscript/
Disallow: /forums/cpstyles/
Disallow: /forums/customavatars/
Disallow: /forums/customprofilepics/
Disallow: /forums/images/
Disallow: /forums/vbmodcp/
Disallow: /forums/attachment.php
Disallow: /forums/editpost.php
Disallow: /forums/image.php
Disallow: /forums/misc.php
Disallow: /forums/moderator.php
Disallow: /forums/newattachment.php
Disallow: /forums/newreply.php
Disallow: /forums/newthread.php
Disallow: /forums/online.php
Disallow: /forums/poll.php
Disallow: /forums/postings.php
Disallow: /forums/printthread.php
Disallow: /forums/private.php
Disallow: /forums/profile.php
Disallow: /forums/register.php
Disallow: /forums/report.php
Disallow: /forums/reputation.php
Disallow: /forums/search.php
Disallow: /forums/sendmessage.php
Disallow: /forums/subscription.php
Disallow: /forums/threadrate.php
Disallow: /forums/usernote.php

This goes in your website root directory. My forums happened to be installed in the /forums/ directory- update the URLs for your own setup.

[SaN-DeeP]

thank you for making prompt reply,
We have our forums setup in subdomain, where would you recommend to place the robots.txt

[Trevor Hannant]

In the root of your vBulletin directory

[SaN-DeeP]

Thanks Trevor,
Do you have any idea why those printhread.php got indexed in search results ?
Our showthread template is setup to have rel=nofollow for all printthread.php pages.

[BirdOPrey5]

Search engines don't really call about rel=nofollow - they just don't give them much "weight" but search spiders follow pretty much every link, that is their job..