Feeds removed from Google search results
Google is no longer including RSS or Atom feeds in its search results.
The move, intended to reduce the amount of duplicate results users see, was confirmed by Bogdan Stănescu on the Google Webmaster Central blog this week.
RSS and Atom are the two most popular XML file formats used by bloggers to publish their their content to a wider audience. Once published, these web feeds can be then used by feed reader software, allowing people to automatically receive the latest posts from their favourite blogs without having to check back for new content.
[Hint: You can subscribe to this news page by clicking here]
Improving user experience
However, feeds aren’t necessarily a great thing to feature in the search results, as Bogdan explains,
- Feeds increase the likelihood that users see duplicate search results.
- Users clicking on a feed may miss valuable content available only in the HTML page.
Although most feeds have been eliminated, podcasts are still allowed as they tend to be standalone documents, rather than reproductions or excerpts from a HTML page that might also be indexed.
‘Authority’ feeds ranking highly
The problem of RSS and Atom feeds joining the original pages in the search rankings has been exacerbated by the structure of many blogs; with repeated links and “subscribe” options meaning feeds were able to gain enough authority to rank well in their own right.
The change in the way feeds are treated is part of Google’s continuing efforts to improve the relevancy of its search results. Google’s prominent Head of Webspam, Matt Cutts, recently revealed that the company has also tweaked the way they handle subdomains to try to reduce the incidence of searches returning lots of results from the same domain.
| 
