A topic is, for Google adwords landing pages which one is best for avoid indexing of offer page URL. When we design landing pages, this is important thing that no one can open your landing page or offer page directly so we use robots.txt or noindex meta tag.
I see different methods which are used by campaign admins.
Method 1: some uses robots.txt for decline the crawling of landing page.
Method 2: some uses No index meta tag for stop to indexing the website.
Method 3: Some uses both robots.txt and noindex for blocking the robots.
But which one is right?
Before take decision we discuss firstly the difference between crawling and indexing.
Crawling:
When any search engine bots read any docs (web page) then this procedure is called as crawling.
Indexing:
When search engine save any web pages in his data base, it’s called as indexing.
For better understanding about Google crawling and indexing see this Video:
Now we see the difference between robots.txt and noindex Meta tag:
Robots.txt:
A text file of instructions for search engine bots about “which directories and WebPages they read (allow 🙂 and don’t read (disallow :)”.
Understand in detail about robots.txt from Google source: Block Urls With Robots.Txt
No index meta tag (<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex”>):
A Meta tag who guide to search engines that “don’t show a particular this web page in search results”.
Understand in detail about noindex meta tag from Google source: Block search indexing with meta tags
Now on Topic:
Above mention three methods, a time of conclusion about which one is perfect for adwords landing page.
My view is 2nd method: noindex Meta tag is right way for disallow to search engine bots for indexing.
Why?
We know about keyword quality score, a key for decide about which keywords are perfect for your campaign. According to definition quality score is too much depend on your landing page design and if we think that Google don’t see the on page optimization of web pages for adwords then we are wrong.
Google has crawl the landing page and then check the relevancy of content and campaign targeted keywords, so the 2nd method is right way to stop the indexing of offer pages.
Why not robots.txt?
If you use robots.txt then Google not crawl your website and quality score of keywords go down or shows it always low.
Why not both robots.txt & nofollow meta tag:
After using robots.txt, there is no meaning to using noindex meta tag, because without crawling Google does not able to read noindex meta tag.
So ultimately conclusion is “using noindex meta is right way for stop direct click on landing page.”