Use robots.txt to prevent old Help documentation appearing in Google search results

[jamielaird]

Problem:

When searching for Alteryx help on Google the search results rarely return the current version of the Help documentation from the Alteryx website. Instead, what often happens is that an old version of the Help documentation is returned.

For example, a search for 'Run Commend Tool Alteryx' returns links for the 2018.3 and 11.3 instances of the help page:

These relate to prior versions of Alteryx and a better result would be to link to the /current/ version of the page (the URL for which never changes).

https://help.alteryx.com/current/RunCommand.htm

The problem above can be replicated for almost any tool or variant of search terms.

Since Google is such a crucial resource for troubleshooting, there is a risk that (a) users will inadvertently access out of date documentation and (b) users will be confused by the presence of multiple search results.

Solution:

By adding a 'robots.txt' file to web pages for prior versions of the tool these results can be suppressed from Google search results.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6062608?hl=en

This should result in the /current/ documentation pages rising in search results and being more prominent when users search for help on Alteryx using Google.

[Atabarezz]

great suggestion 

I keep querying and ending up with the older versions' help files all the time...

[jamielaird]

Thanks @Atabarezz. This one comes up a lot for me too and I've gotten into the habit of manually changing the URL to /current/ which seems far from ideal.

A quick fix would be to add a warning note to any outdated Help pages with a link to the /current/ version.