How come when I search for something in my forum in Google most of the results link to the archived version of the thread?
For example:
Normal thread
domain.com/showthread.php?tid=123
Archive thread
domain.com/index.php/archive/showthread.php?tid=123
What even causes a thread to be archived?
you can use
robots.txt file to disable bots crawling to archive
Disallow: /archive/*
sample robots.txt :
User-Agent: *
Disallow: /archive/*
Disallow: /captcha.php
Disallow: /editpost.php
Disallow: /misc.php
Disallow: /modcp.php
Disallow: /moderation.php
Disallow: /newreply.php
Disallow: /newthread.php
Disallow: /online.php
Disallow: /printthread.php
Disallow: /private.php
Disallow: /ratethread.php
Disallow: /report.php
Disallow: /reputation.php
Disallow: /search.php
Disallow: /sendthread.php
Disallow: /task.php
Disallow: /usercp.php
Disallow: /usercp2.php
Disallow: /calendar.php
Disallow: /*action=emailuser*
Disallow: /*action=nextnewest*
Disallow: /*action=nextoldest*
Disallow: /*year=*
Disallow: /*action=weekview*
Disallow: /*action=nextnewest*
Disallow: /*action=nextoldest*
Disallow: /*sort=*
Disallow: /*order=*
Disallow: /*mode=*
Disallow: /*datecut=*
Allow: /
How come this seems to only happen for one of my forums?
^ that needs to be checked with bots permissions and Google webmasters account. if you are uncomfortable
in checking it, you may have to seek help from an experienced person by giving required temporary privileges