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Tuesday, December 18, 2007
As a webmaster, you may have been concerned about your RSS/Atom feeds crowding out their
associated HTML pages in Google's search results. By serving feeds, we could cause a poor user
experience:
Feeds increase the likelihood that users see duplicate search results.
Users clicking on a feed may miss valuable content available only in the HTML page.
To address these concerns, we prevent feeds from being returned in Google's search results, with
the exception of podcasts (feeds with multimedia enclosures). We continue to allow podcasts,
because we noticed a significant number of them are standalone documents (that is, no HTML page
has the same content) or they have more complete item descriptions than the associated HTML page.
However, if, as a webmaster, you'd like your podcasts to be excluded from Google's search results
(for example, if you have a vlog, its feed is probably a podcast), you can use
Yahoo's spec for noindex feeds.
If you use FeedBurner, making your
podcast noindex is as simple as checking a box ("Noindex" under the "Publicize" tab).
As a user, you may ask yourself whether Google has a way to search for feeds. The answer is yes;
both Google Reader and
iGoogle allow searching for feeds to
subscribe to.
We're aware that there are a few non-podcast feeds out there with no associated HTML pages, and
thus removing these feeds for now from the search results might be less than ideal. We remain open
to other feedback on how to improve the handling of feeds, and especially welcome your comments
and questions in the
Crawling, Indexing and Ranking
subtopic of our Webmaster Help Group.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],[],[[["\u003cp\u003eTo enhance user experience, Google Search generally excludes RSS/Atom feeds from search results, except for podcasts due to their unique content or format.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eWebmasters concerned about podcast feeds appearing in search results can utilize methods like Yahoo's \u003ccode\u003enoindex\u003c/code\u003e spec or FeedBurner's "Noindex" option to prevent their inclusion.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eUsers seeking feeds can utilize platforms like Google Reader and iGoogle, which offer dedicated feed search functionalities for subscription purposes.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eRecognizing the existence of valuable non-podcast feeds without associated HTML pages, Google remains receptive to feedback and suggestions for refining feed handling within search results.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],["Google decided to exclude RSS/Atom feeds from search results, except for podcasts, due to concerns about duplicate content and potential loss of valuable HTML content. Podcasts are allowed as they often stand alone or provide more complete descriptions. Webmasters can use Yahoo's spec or FeedBurner to exclude podcasts from search. Users can search for feeds via Google Reader and iGoogle. Google welcomes feedback on handling non-podcast feeds without associated HTML pages.\n"],null,["# Taking feeds out of our web search results\n\nTuesday, December 18, 2007\n\n\nAs a webmaster, you may have been concerned about your RSS/Atom feeds crowding out their\nassociated HTML pages in Google's search results. By serving feeds, we could cause a poor user\nexperience:\n\n1. Feeds increase the likelihood that users see duplicate search results.\n2. Users clicking on a feed may miss valuable content available only in the HTML page.\n\n\nTo address these concerns, we prevent feeds from being returned in Google's search results, with\nthe exception of podcasts (feeds with multimedia enclosures). We continue to allow podcasts,\nbecause we noticed a significant number of them are standalone documents (that is, no HTML page\nhas the same content) or they have more complete item descriptions than the associated HTML page.\nHowever, if, as a webmaster, you'd like your podcasts to be excluded from Google's search results\n(for example, if you have a vlog, its feed is probably a podcast), you can use\n[Yahoo's spec for noindex feeds](https://publisher.yahoo.com/rss_guide/faq.php).\nIf you use [FeedBurner](https://www.feedburner.com/), making your\npodcast `noindex` is as simple as checking a box (\"Noindex\" under the \"Publicize\" tab).\n\n\nAs a user, you may ask yourself whether Google has a way to search for feeds. The answer is yes;\nboth [Google Reader](https://www.google.com/reader/) and\n[iGoogle](https://www.google.com/ig) allow searching for feeds to\nsubscribe to.\n\n\nWe're aware that there are a few non-podcast feeds out there with no associated HTML pages, and\nthus removing these feeds for now from the search results might be less than ideal. We remain open\nto other feedback on how to improve the handling of feeds, and especially welcome your comments\nand questions in the\n[Crawling, Indexing and Ranking](https://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/topics)\nsubtopic of our Webmaster Help Group.\n\nWritten by Bogdan Stănescu, Software Engineer"]]
