Is Your Exclusive Network Marketing Training Being Stolen?
Do you ever wonder if the exclusive training that you offer through your email list is being read or viewed by people that didn’t sign up for it?
If you didn’t protect your training material when you created it, then most likely it is in the index database of Google, Yahoo (Bing) or any other search-engine index for anybody to find.
Protecting Your Opt-In-Box Training Using the NoIndex Tag!
Let me give you an example… we’ll use the ever popular and highly successful online marketer, Katie Freiling.
When I first starting blogging back in June of 2010, I took some online marketing training from Katie by submitting my name and email address in to the opt in box on her blog.
When I received her training through my email, the link went to a page on her blog site, which is excluded from the public eye.
For the purpose of this article, I thought I’d check to see if her training is in the index database of Google and Yahoo.
When I did a search for a couple of her URL links that lead to her exclusive video training, I came up with results showing that her link, along with her information, were in the index database of both of these major search-engines!
What this means is that a person doing a search could find her training in the Search-Engine Results Pages (SERPs), by total accident (or on purpose), and click on the link to her training video without signing up for it.
If I were to guess, I believe that Katie would like to keep control of who views her training videos that she has offered through her Opt-In-Box email list.
For those that aren’t familiar with it… a person can make a healthy living through the building of their ‘List’ in which the person relies on people signing up through their opt in box.
For those that are curious, I have already let Katie know that her exclusive video training series is showing up in the Google and Yahoo Search Engine Results Pages!
Is Your Training Indexed for Anybody to Find!
To check and see if your blog training is in the Google index, follow the instructions below.
Let’s check Google’s index database… visit Google and type in the Search bar “Site:” followed by the website page URL that you are checking. If you show results, then the page is in the Google index for people to find.
NoIndex Attribute, the Solution to the Opt-In-Box, Indexed Dilemma!
The solution to this problem is to have the pages that you would like to keep control over, protected by a “NoIndex” attribute attached to the page. This noindex tag tells the search engines that you don’t want this particular page in their index database.
There is a plug-in that will allow you to add the no index attribute to any page you choose. This is a WordPress-based plug-in called Robots Meta.
Alternate ‘NoIndex’ WordPress Plugin: http://wordpress.org/plugins/ultimate-noindex-nofollow-tool-ii/
OR…
The All in One SEO Pack now includes check boxes for “NoIndex” and “NoFollow”.
Which ever plugin you decide to use, these plugins will allow you to add the appropriate meta robots tag to your pages telling the search-engine spiders to not crawl and index this page.
After you have ticked the noindex, nofollow in your plugin for your training page(s), click on the ‘Update’ button to save.
If you would like to see that your page now has the noindex attribute in its code for the search-engine to read, you can look at the HTML source code in your web browser.
To locate this source code, hover your mouse over the content then right click with your mouse, click on ‘View Page Source’ for the Firefox browser; for the Internet Explorer browser, click on Page > View Source; or click the wrench icon > Tools > View Source for the Google Chrome browser.
Once you open the source code in your browser, scroll down until you locate <meta name=”robots” content=”noindex,nofollow” />. It shouldn’t be too far down, because this code needs to be in the <head> section, which is the top part of the HTML web page’s source code.
Closing Comments about the Opt in Box, NoIndex Problem!
Just like Katie Freiling, we all work very hard to give people that are interested, the most in-depth, helpful information from our field of expertise that we can, and as such we should be able to distribute this information in a controlled manner.
If you happen to find your exclusive training material in the Google index database, be patient because it may take a few weeks for the pages to be removed from the search-engine’s index.
OR…
If you happen to have your site listed with Google, you can request your link be removed from their database.
The only other alternative to protect your training materials is through the use of a robot.txt file. For this you will need to, either create one or, gain access to it which will be located in the root directory of your website.
But if you are not familiar with how to create a robot text file or gain access your root directory through an FTP client, then this method is a whole other article in itself and you might as well be satisfied with the above ‘NoIndex‘ attribute instructions.
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Hi John,
Thanks for this nugget – I’d not heard of this plugin, which will make life easier than adding pages into the “All In One SEO pack” or “Google XML Sitemaps” “exclusion” lists… doing something on-page is simpler & less likely to be forgotten!
Thanks, and have a great holiday break!
Tracey
Hi Tracey,
I’m glad that you found my information helpful… does excluding pages through the All in One SEO Pack actually add the “noindex” attribute to the page so it won’t be indexed?
If it does add the noindex tag, then I learned something new today… although I am not new to SEO, I am fairly new to blogging and WordPress, so I still have a lot to learn about that part of it.
Thank You for stopping by Tracey!
John Engle
Great post John, I’ve seen this happen with many other marketers and membership sites.
A quick and simple fix. It’s usually those small things that you miss that make a world of a difference.
Hey John,
It is an easy fix John… those that are relying on their opt-in-box to supplement their income should really consider the attribute to remove the training from the search-engine spiders vision.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting!
John Engle
Hey there, You have performed an incredible job. I will definitely digg it and individually suggest to my friends. I am sure they will be benefited from this site.
Useful information. Fortunate me I found your web site unintentionally, and I’m surprised why this twist of fate didn’t happened in advance!
I bookmarked it.
Great post, John. I no index some of my pages for the exact same reasons, but it does give a disclaimer that the search engines still could index it, even if you chose no index. Is there anyway you can confirm if that is right or wrong? I would really appreciate it. Nice blog here.