wiki.ubuntu.com uses nofollow for all links (including internal links!)

[Anders Kaseorg]

Every page on wiki.ubuntu.com specifies
<meta name="robots" content="index,nofollow">

This “nofollow” affects every link on the page, including internal links. This cripples search engines that want to index content on wiki.ubuntu.com, and as a result it is often difficult or impossible to find that content unless it is specifically linked from other websites.

For example, Google can’t find https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DocumentationStringFreeze if you ask for [ubuntu documentation string freeze] or [ubuntu DocumentationStringFreeze] or even [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DocumentationStringFreeze].

Please remove the global nofollow in the <meta> tag. If nofollow is necessary to control spammers, use rel="nofollow" on individual external links (and not internal links).

[Matthew East (mdke)]

This behaviour comes from the software used by the wiki, MoinMoin. I don't know much about the technical details but it seems that it is done this way to avoid excessive load on servers. See the discussion here: http://moinmo.in/FeatureRequests/AlternativeSpiderControlFeatures

I'm closing the bug on ubuntu-website as this depends on the upstream software. To develop this issue further I suggest that you get in touch with the MoinMoin developers and continue the discussion there.

[Anders Kaseorg (andersk)]

Have you considered submitting https://wiki.ubuntu.com/?action=sitemap to Google as a sitemap, using the Google webmaster tools? That would at least help.

[Matthew East (mdke)]

That might be a good option, although that page appears to time out frequently, and it would require someone with physical access to the server in order to verify the site for the purpose of Google's webmaster tools. I'll assign to Matthew Nuzum as wishlist.

(MoinMoin doesn't use Launchpad for tracking bugs - see https://bugs.launchpad.net/moinmoin - so I wouldn't bother opening a separate task for MoinMoin.)

[ReimarBauer (reimarbauer)]

The option is configurable see
http://hg.moinmo.in/moin/1.9/file/06908566d7bd/MoinMoin/config/multiconfig.py#l1054

or HelpOnConfiguration

The MoinMoin site itselfs uses the default
<meta name="robots" content="index,follow">

Reimar

[Thomas Waldmann (tw-public)]

See robots meta on TitleIndex, RecentChanges, front page.

[Anders Kaseorg (andersk)]

This is not an upstream moinmoin bug, as per comment 4.

[Anders Kaseorg (andersk)]

Can you please remove the Won't Fix status or explain why you’re unwilling to fix this simple configuration option?

[Anders Kaseorg (andersk)]

Anyone?

This was marked Won’t Fix with the justification that this is not configurable upstream. Since ReimarBauer pointed out this _is_ configurable upstream (comment 4), there is no reason for this to be Won’t Fix.

I would really like wiki.ubuntu.com to stop committing intentional SEO suicide, so that I can find official Ubuntu documentation with Google.