Google has launched a clean-up operation to prevent raw RSS feeds from showing up in the search results. It’s a step that will be appreciated by both content publishers and search engine visitors alike.
To start with, Google has de-indexed all FeedBurner RSS feeds from their main web search index (see screenshot). Even RSS feeds that are syndicated via the FeedBurner MyBrand service (e.g. feeds.labnol.org/labnol) are no longer available in Google Search.
This is true for all feeds that exist on FeedBurner irrespective of the NOINDEX settings that you may have configured through the FeedBurner Dashboard.
Though the XML feeds of Blogger blogs (blogspot.com/feeds/posts/.. and blogger.com/feeds/..) are still indexed by Google, it should not surprise if blogspot feeds also face the Google axe just like FeedBurner feeds.
[Worth noting that both Blogger and FeedBurner are owned by Google.]
This is probably an excellent step from Google for two reasons - one, it solves (to some extent) the problem of duplicate content and two, when non-techie users click on search results that point to RSS feeds and not regular web pages, they may not know how to deal with them and quickly leave.
Related Reading: FeedBurner FAQ
Update from Matt: Google has been working to handle all feeds better (not just Feedburner feeds), namely by properly canonicalizing feeds to their corresponding HTML pages (as a related note, that also means we’re showing raw RSS feeds in our index much less often).
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/internet/search/google-search-index-without-feedburner-rss-feeds/1599/
web: http://www.labnol.org/ email: amit@labnol.org
Reader Comments
That’s great news, and i agree with the point that non-techie’s might not understand the feed page and may leave… one of my blog has the same problem.. google has indexed the feed of all the comments on my blog… so i might be loosing lot of visitors..
it would be great if they remove all the feeds pages like this one labnol.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/278895720750880317 from google index.
cheers
Written by Mandeep Bhangu on 10.22.07
Hi Amit, I’m a software engineer at Google.
Google has been working to handle all feeds better (not just Feedburner feeds), namely by properly canonicalizing feeds to their corresponding HTML pages (as a related note, that also means we’re showing raw RSS feeds in our index much less often).
If there’s any way to modify your headline to reflect that these are improvements that we’re making for all feeds, and that we’re not doing anything special/different for Feedburner feeds, I’d appreciate it.
Written by Matt Cutts on 10.22.07
Hey Amit - Just a quick clarification: this removal applies to all feeds, not just feeds resident on feeds.feedburner.com! The goal is, as you identified, to eliminate any risk of duplicate content and ensure that results in the index properly represent webpages. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Regards,
Rick Klau
Google (FeedBurner)
Written by Rick Klau on 10.22.07
Matt and Rick - Thanks for the update.
It’s definitely a big improvement that I am sure will be liked by all content publishers. Hope you extend that to other platforms as well including blogger and wordpress.
Written by Amit Agarwal on 10.22.07
Although this seems to be a noble move, I am sure that Google has a bigger reason behind scenes. Feedburner is giving google some revenue and perhaps google is channelling this in another way.
Written by Vivek on 10.22.07
Interesting article thanks. I was not aware that Google didn’t index feedburner feeds but it makes sense.
Written by Gary on 01.10.09