google webmaster tools error

[noworyz]

I am using Google Webmaster tools and it has about 40 URLs that are unreachable that all pretty much have the same info for my coppermine gallery.

http://www.egriz.com/GrizPics2/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=0&pid=28&slideshow=3000

They all have the slideshow variable at the end and all are using the file displayimage.

Is there anyway I can prevent the search engines from trying to see this type of page.  I don't want to get rid of displayimage cause then none of my picture pages would be seen.  Thanks for any help

[Aeronautic]

Here is what I'm using, on just one site for specific reasons, based on the use of the Google Wildcard Pattern Matching Variable:

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Disallow: /yourcoppermineinstalldirectory/faq.php
Disallow: /yourcoppermineinstalldirectory/forgot_passwd.php
Disallow: /yourcoppermineinstalldirectory/login.php
Disallow: /yourcoppermineinstalldirectory/login.php?referer=index.php
Disallow: /yourcoppermineinstalldirectory/addfav*
Disallow: /yourcoppermineinstalldirectory/ecard*
Disallow: /yourcoppermineinstalldirectory/thumbnails.php?album=*favpics*
Disallow: /yourcoppermineinstalldirectory/thumbnails.php?album=*lastup*
Disallow: /yourcoppermineinstalldirectory/thumbnails.php?album=*lastcom*
Disallow: /yourcoppermineinstalldirectory/thumbnails.php?album=*topn*
Disallow: /yourcoppermineinstalldirectory/thumbnails.php?album=*toprated*
Disallow: /yourcoppermineinstalldirectory/thumbnails.php?album=*search*
Disallow: /yourcoppermineinstalldirectory/thumbnails.php?album=*slideshow*
Disallow: /yourcoppermineinstalldirectory/ratepic.php


That's not the whole robots.txt file of course, just those directives.

Some of those pages will make sense at first glance - why put the login page in Google's SERPS?

The others I'm using to remove duplicate urls and urls that the public should not see since for this site I'm not using top rated, favorite pics, etc.

However, this syntax is not used by MSN or Yahoo as far as I know.

The string *STRING* is intended to disallow the bit between the two "*"

This has started to remove many such pages as I intended from Google. However, maybe I'm doing it wrong, but the slideshow urls keep getting crawled and staying in the index of Google.

NOTE: While looking for the references at Google for the exact syntax it appears Yahoo is indeed respecting some form of wildcards:

Webmaster World Thread on Yahoo Robots.txt - Wildcards

The link above also goes into the Google use. Webmasterworld.com is free but you may need to register to read that thread.

The straight dope from Google.

[Joachim Müller]

Another option would be adding rel="nofollow" to the links. To accomplish this for the slideshow links, edit themes/yourtheme/theme.php, find

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// HTML template for the image navigation barand edit the stuff underneath it accordingly. If you don't have that section in your theme, copy

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// HTML template for the image navigation bar
$template_img_navbar = <<<EOT

        <tr>
                <td align="center" valign="middle" class="navmenu" width="48">
                        <a href="{THUMB_TGT}" class="navmenu_pic" title="{THUMB_TITLE}"><img src="{LOCATION}images/thumbnails.gif" align="middle" border="0" alt="{THUMB_TITLE}" /></a>
                </td>
                <td align="center" valign="middle" class="navmenu" width="48">
                        <a href="javascript:;" class="navmenu_pic" onclick="blocking('picinfo','yes', 'block'); return false;" title="{PIC_INFO_TITLE}"><img src="{LOCATION}images/info.gif" border="0" align="middle" alt="{PIC_INFO_TITLE}" /></a>
                </td>
                <td align="center" valign="middle" class="navmenu" width="48">
                        <a href="{SLIDESHOW_TGT}" class="navmenu_pic" title="{SLIDESHOW_TITLE}"><img src="{LOCATION}images/slideshow.gif" border="0" align="middle" alt="{SLIDESHOW_TITLE}" /></a>
                </td>
                <td align="center" valign="middle" class="navmenu" width="100%">
                        {PIC_POS}
                </td>
<!-- BEGIN report_file_button -->
                <td align="center" valign="middle" class="navmenu" width="48">
                        <a href="{REPORT_TGT}" class="navmenu_pic" title="{REPORT_TITLE}"><img src="{LOCATION}images/report.gif" border="0" align="middle" alt="{REPORT_TITLE}" /></a>
                </td>
<!-- END report_file_button -->
<!-- BEGIN ecard_button -->
                <td align="center" valign="middle" class="navmenu" width="48">
                        <a href="{ECARD_TGT}" class="navmenu_pic" title="{ECARD_TITLE}"><img src="{LOCATION}images/ecard.gif"  border="0" align="middle" alt="{ECARD_TITLE}" /></a>
                </td>
<!-- END ecard_button -->
                <td align="center" valign="middle" class="navmenu" width="48">
                        <a href="{PREV_TGT}" class="navmenu_pic" title="{PREV_TITLE}"><img src="{LOCATION}images/prev.gif"  border="0" align="middle" alt="{PREV_TITLE}" /></a>
                </td>
                <td align="center" valign="middle" class="navmenu" width="48">
                        <a href="{NEXT_TGT}" class="navmenu_pic" title="{NEXT_TITLE}"><img src="{LOCATION}images/next.gif"  border="0" align="middle" alt="{NEXT_TITLE}" /></a>
                </td>
        </tr>

EOT;from themes/sample/theme.php into a new line before

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?>into themes/yourtheme/theme.php and change

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<a href="{SLIDESHOW_TGT}" class="navmenu_pic" title="{SLIDESHOW_TITLE}"><img src="{LOCATION}images/slideshow.gif" border="0" align="middle" alt="{SLIDESHOW_TITLE}" /></a>to

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<a href="{SLIDESHOW_TGT}" class="navmenu_pic" title="{SLIDESHOW_TITLE}" rel="nofollow"><img src="{LOCATION}images/slideshow.gif" border="0" align="middle" alt="{SLIDESHOW_TITLE}" /></a>This should keep the google bot from spidering the slideshow links. Other search engine spiders will probably not respect the attribute, so you should review the robots.txt changes that Aeronautic suggested as well.

Details on the rel="nofollow" attribute can be found here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=33582

[noworyz]

thanks for the help.  I have put these in place and will see if it works.

[Aeronautic]

Brilliant "no follow" tip as well GauGau - will load at once.

[noworyz]

I'm still having this issue with the wildcard robots.txt and the no-follow in place?  Any other ideas?