Re-enable WP 5.7+ search spam prevention?

  • Resolved agathongroup

    (@agathongroup)


    3 years, 2 months ago

    Hi there,

    As of WordPress 5.7, all search results pages include an HTML meta tag to tell robots not to index the results, to help combat reflected search results spamming. You can see the changeset in trac, and the code itself on github.

    That functionality is disabled by All-In-One SEO in the app/Common/Meta/Robots.php file by the disableWpRobotsCore() function, which is added to the wp_head action in the constructor. As a result, sites with All-In-On SEO enabled will not have that meta tag in search results, and spammy search URLs will still be indexed by Google and others. This can be a big problem for some site owners.

    It would be wonderful if the default behavior were to leave the stock WordPress functionality in place (that is; to noindex search results) and provide search results indexing as an opt-in function for site owners that want it. You can read some discussion on the feature on this trac ticket.

    Thanks in advance for your consideration!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Thread Starter agathongroup

    (@agathongroup)

    I realize, upon closer inspection, that the default WP behavior is preserved somewhat if Search Appearance -> Advanced -> Global Robots Meta is set to “Use Default Settings”.

    This ensures that noindexing happens on pages 2+ of search results, but will still allow indexing on the first page, and on pages with 0 results (which is quite likely for a lot of spammy search terms).

    So I will adjust my request to allow for noindexing **all** search pages, or at least search pages with 0 results.

    Plugin Support Shivam Tyagi

    (@shivamtyagi)

    Hi @agathongroup, You can control the search appearance of your search pages by going to All in One SEO > Search Appearance > Archives where you’ll see a section for Search Page.

    You’ll see a toggle for Show in Search Results, if that’s set to No then AIOSEO will put a noindex tag on all of your search pages.

    Thread Starter agathongroup

    (@agathongroup)

    @shivamtyagi – thanks for the reply, and for pointing me in that direction. I hadn’t thought to look under Archives for that, but that’s exactly what I was looking for. Appreciate it!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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