[liondedan]

Hello,

I'm well aware that you can no index an entire page to prevent the google robots from indexing it, but how do you no-index a certain section i.e a paragraph or sidebar etc.

[dzine]

What do you want to accomplish exactly?

Since search engines index websites page-by-page, what are you hoping to achieve:
- do you want to make sure certain bits don't show on the SERPS?
- do you want to hide sections of pages from search engines completely?
- do you want to hide sections of pages from human visitors completely?
- ...

[liondedan]

I've got a page where I've got a sidebar with the same content throughout, I was just hoping to get the search robots to ignore and not index this section to avoid duplication.

Sorry if the above was a bit confusing.

[Contra]

Originally Posted by liondedan

I've got a page where I've got a sidebar with the same content throughout, I was just hoping to get the search robots to ignore and not index this section to avoid duplication.

Sorry if the above was a bit confusing.

Wow, I never actually thought of that... I have the same header, sidebar, and footer on every page. The foot contains things such as my license numbers, address, accepted payment methods, etc. The sidebar contains small snippets of promotions and contact forms.

But I assume Google is smart enough to know that stuff is normal on every webpage and not penalize for it... right?

[dzine]

Yes. There is absolutely no harm in that.
I dunno what's wrong with 'SEOs' wetting their knickers over stuff that EVERY NORMAL WEBSITE HAS.

But hey: you could always use a <frameset> ... with a separate frame for the navigation bit

[iamseo]

Yes... I agree with you "Google is smart enough to know that stuff is normal on every webpage and not penalize for it".

Originally Posted by Contra

Wow, I never actually thought of that... I have the same header, sidebar, and footer on every page. The foot contains things such as my license numbers, address, accepted payment methods, etc. The sidebar contains small snippets of promotions and contact forms.

But I assume Google is smart enough to know that stuff is normal on every webpage and not penalize for it... right?