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Is there any way to make it so that Google wouldn't index the chats from the Comms Room? Why is it currently set up the way it is?

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  • Are you talking about existing stuff going back ~4 years (that I assume is already indexed)? Or the few residual posts that are showing up now? Nov 13, 2014 at 0:14
  • I could be ok with either situation. The goal would be making chat a place that people are more comfortable to use, without feeling like it could be a resource for people to dig up embarrassing out-of-context quotes. That said, we could get that without going back and removing all the old history.
    – Basil
    Nov 13, 2014 at 14:31
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    Why? If you're making a request, you should give reasons.
    – TRiG
    Nov 13, 2014 at 15:25
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    I tagged it as "discussion", not "feature request"
    – Basil
    Nov 13, 2014 at 21:29

1 Answer 1

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Eh, sorta... You can set robots.txt to not index the transcripts of particular rooms or the whole site. But:

  1. That doesn't stop anyone from copying the content, and allowing it to be indexed from their site.
  2. Google's a bit slow at updating the "rules" from robots.txt if it's already indexed a site.
  3. Rule #5 - The Internet Never Forgives or Forgets
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    Not worried about the internet forgetting, but if we made the Comms room resistant to casual browsing looking for out-of-context quotes that would make someone look foolish or something, it would be better than it is now.
    – Basil
    Nov 13, 2014 at 14:32

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