Make Google index a Print Page?

For each page of a website there is another page, which is used for print
purposes. It's content is basically the same: the markup is slightly
different, some images are removed, the navigation is completely removed.
When viewing the page as "text-only", maybe 90% of the text is identical.

Should I tell Google (with the meta/robots tag) to not index the print
pages? Will Google regard the print page as spamming, as it's content is
almost identical the other page?

Or will it not harm? Maybe it will even be advisable, as the website's
content is effectively doubled.

Michael G. Schneider

Michael G. Schneider wrote:

For each page of a website there is another page, which is used for
print purposes. It's content is basically the same: the markup is
slightly different, some images are removed, the navigation is
completely removed. When viewing the page as "text-only", maybe 90%
of the text is identical.

Welcome to the Web, which can work media-independent. Just use HTML
with CSS, and separate media screen, projection etc from media print.
Then whenever the user wants to print out the current page she just
hits the print button. Navigation will not be seen on the paper.

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"Philipp Lenssen" <info (AT) outer-court (DOT) com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:2pqt2nFokcilU2 (AT) uni-berlin (DOT) de...

Welcome to the Web, which can work media-independent. Just use
HTML with CSS, and separate media screen, projection etc from
media print. Then whenever the user wants to print out the current
page she just hits the print button. Navigation will not be seen on the
paper.

This answer is not quite what I was looking for, but thank's a lot anyway.

The website is created from XML input. Creating two slightly different HTML
pages is no problem at all

Furthermore the website is styled with CSS exclusively. For example there
are no tables at all. However, there are some print view features, which I
was not able to do without creating two separate pages. But maybe you can
help. For example...

An anchor tag should not be visible on the print page. The user should not
be able to have the print page and click on a link. Instead...

<a href="bla">caption</a>

should be replaced with something like...

caption --> bla

Michael G. Schneider

Michael G. Schneider wrote:

"Philipp Lenssen" <info (AT) outer-court (DOT) com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:2pqt2nFokcilU2 (AT) uni-berlin (DOT) de...

Welcome to the Web, which can work media-independent. Just use
HTML with CSS, and separate media screen, projection etc from
media print. Then whenever the user wants to print out the current
page she just hits the print button. Navigation will not be seen on
the paper.

This answer is not quite what I was looking for, but thank's a lot
anyway.

The website is created from XML input. Creating two slightly
different HTML pages is no problem at all

Yes it is. You already ran into one problem and asked in this
newsgroup. You will run into different other problems. Such as people
not respecting what you intend your page for, and linking to the
Print-version on the web (I've seen this before and it inspired me to
always do the same, as the print-version contains less ads and clutter).

If you do not intend to hide the print view from search engines, you
will thus split your PageRank in two. If you do hide it, you lose half
of your PageRank. I'm sure there are more problems I didn't think of;
such is my experiencing for workarounds on the web as opposed to using
a well-defined, working standard.

An anchor tag should not be visible on the print page. The user
should not be able to have the print page and click on a link.
Instead...

a href="bla">caption</a

should be replaced with something like...

caption --> bla

This is possible with stylesheets for Mozilla-based browsers (or others
supporting CSS). It is not possible in Internet Explorer. However, IE
offers the user a possibility to print all links. What you can easily
do in "all" browsers is to hide the underline. These are appropriate
questions for a CSS newsgroup.

--
Google Blogoscoped
http://blog.outer-court.com

"Philipp Lenssen" <info (AT) outer-court (DOT) com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:2pquudFoc5k7U1 (AT) uni-berlin (DOT) de...

Such as people not respecting what you intend your page
for, and linking to the Print-version on the web (I've seen
this before and it inspired me to always do the same, as
the print-version contains less ads and clutter).

There are no ads and no clutter. If somebody really wants to bookmark the
print version, he can do so. There is no navigation on the page, there are
no anchors. He can do nothing with the page except reading or printing. He
cannot move on to other pages of the website.

This is possible with stylesheets for Mozilla-based browsers (or
others supporting CSS). It is not possible in Internet Explorer.
However, IE offers the user a possibility to print all links. What you
can easily do in "all" browsers is to hide the underline. These are
appropriate questions for a CSS newsgroup.

How would you do so in Mozilla-based browsers? Can you give me a hint? I
understand that it is standard CSS, but IE won't support it.

Just removing the underline is not what I was looking for (I do know how to
achieve this).

Michael G. Schneider

On Fri, 3 Sep 2004 08:23:27 +0200, "Michael G. Schneider"
<mgs-AntiSpam (AT) mgs-software (DOT) de> wrote:

Make sure it's clearly labelled as "printer-friendly" and if you do
get a penalty (Stoma can advise here) complain to Google.

BB

Michael G. Schneider wrote:

How would you do so in Mozilla-based browsers? Can you give me a
hint? I understand that it is standard CSS, but IE won't support it.

Something like this, but I never tested:

:link:after,
:visited:after
{
content: " <URL: " attr(href) " >";
}

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Google Blogoscoped
http://blog.outer-court.com

"Philipp Lenssen" <info (AT) outer-court (DOT) com> wrote in news:2pquudFoc5k7U1
@uni-berlin.de:

An anchor tag should not be visible on the print page. The user
should not be able to have the print page and click on a link.
Instead...

a href="bla">caption</a

should be replaced with something like...

caption --> bla

This is possible with stylesheets for Mozilla-based browsers (or others
supporting CSS). It is not possible in Internet Explorer. However, IE
offers the user a possibility to print all links. What you can easily
do in "all" browsers is to hide the underline. These are appropriate
questions for a CSS newsgroup.

You could kludge it for IE by repeating the address, but hiding it from
view.


so something like this:

<div class="hidythings">
<a href="bla">caption <span> --> bla</span></a>
<a href="bla">caption <span> --> bla</span></a>
<a href="bla">caption <span> --> bla</span></a>
<div>

then in the browser css:


/* hide all the blas */
div.hidythings a span {visibility:hidden; speak:none;}

and in the print css:

/* take the underlines off */
div.hidythings a {text-decoration: none;}


.... Or something like that - probably needs a bit of refining, haven't
tested it.

It does seem a slightly odd thing to want to do - usually if I'm doing
something of that kind designed for print, I simply use a directory-style
format and display the URIs proudly to all the world.

www.example.com - sells a fine range of examples of all types
www.example.org - independent advice for example users with particular
emphasis on the home example enthusiast.

..... and so on.

Victoria
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Clare Associates Ltd
http://www.clareassoc.co.uk/
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