Should I use 'nofollow' for user-submitted Q&A posts on my website?

I have a health-related website with a Q&A section where readers can submit their questions, which we then review and answer. Currently, there are several hundred Q&A posts like this on the website. The content, in general, is quite thin, and there are some duplicate questions. However, I still find them somewhat useful. Nevertheless, most of these Q&A posts receive little to no traffic. After Google's algorithm update in October, they were targeted as thin content. Should I use 'nofollow' for all these Q&A posts, or if not, how should I handle them? I would greatly appreciate any advice. Thank you!!!

You should no follow external links to avoid spammers, from the SEO standpoint, I don't think that would make a difference. The suggested way from Google is using UGC tag for user generated links, you can try that too if you wish.

As for thin content, you can close duplicated questions then link to already answered thread(s), kinda similar to what BHW is already doing.

yes i think nofollow in Q/A section for spammers

Enhance your health Q&A section by consolidating duplicate questions, improving content quality, and adding value. Consider using 'nofollow' for less impactful posts, signaling to search engines. Prioritize in-depth answers for higher engagement and traffic.

MisaPh said:

The content, in general, is quite thin

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that's not how thin content works. When google penalizes sites for "thin content" it means that those sites have little content (ie. very few words) overall, not in the comments / Q&A sections.

So, if your site only has - as an example - 3 articles of 1000 words each, this is what google considers thin content and it's why your site might not rank and it has nothing to do with the questions / comments that your site gets, which actually do ADD to the content tally of your site, so you want to get comments / UGC whenever possible...

Personally, I don't know the limit for what google considers thin content, but I think that if you have less than 10-15 pages and / or 10-15k words then your site could be marked as thin content. Just aim to have at least 30 content pages with each page having at least 600-700 words (regardless of how much UGC you have) and it should be enough not to have to worry about thin content anymore.

MisaPh said:

and there are some duplicate questions

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it doesn't matter

MisaPh said:

However, I still find them somewhat useful.

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so keep them! If google want to penalize you they'll do it even if you have the best site in the Universe

MisaPh said:

Nevertheless, most of these Q&A posts receive little to no traffic

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pages that get no traffic might not rank, I have heard of this before so it's probably true. But if those questions are on a page that does get traffic (although, from what I'm understanding, your questions are on a separate page, is that true?) you're good and you should keep the page.

MisaPh said:

After Google's algorithm update in October, they were targeted as thin content.

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how do you know? I just checked google's official updates release page and I'm not seeing anything specific about thin content. Only the same general guidelines...

May I ask for a link to where you've read this?

MisaPh said:

Should I use 'nofollow' for all these Q&A posts, or if not, how should I handle them?

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just don't stress about them, let them exist if you feel they bring value to your visitors and don't worry about doing anything with them. Nofollow is usually used for external links (ie. you link out to Wikipedia or to WebMD for example, that's when you use nofollow), but when linking to anything on your site - although it can be done when you don't want to boost the authority of pages that you have no intention of ranking - you don't use nofollow. Nofollow simply tells google that you don't trust the website / page you are linking to but if you nofollow your own content then this tells google that you don't trust your own content, and most of the time you don't want this

I think this would be a better decision to no-follow your UGC content.

tazarbm said:

just don't stress about them, let them exist if you feel they bring value to your visitors and don't worry about doing anything with them. Nofollow is usually used for external links (ie. you link out to Wikipedia or to WebMD for example, that's when you use nofollow), but when linking to anything on your site - although it can be done when you don't want to boost the authority of pages that you have no intention of ranking - you don't use nofollow. Nofollow simply tells google that you don't trust the website / page you are linking to but if you nofollow your own content then this tells google that you don't trust your own content, and most of the time you don't want this

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Thank you, and I apologize for the terminology mistake. What I meant was 'noindex' rather than 'nofollow.' So, if I want to add a 'noindex' tag to such Q&A posts, would that be okay? There are currently around 350 Q&A posts on the website, all of which are user-generated. Each post contains text (including both the question and the answer) that is approximately 200-400 words in length. We have around 800 SEO articles that we've written over the years.

MisaPh said:

Tôi có một trang web liên quan đến sức khỏe có phần Hỏi đáp nơi độc giả có thể gửi câu hỏi của họ, sau đó chúng tôi sẽ xem xét và trả lời. Hiện tại, trên trang web có hàng trăm bài hỏi đáp như thế này. Nhìn chung nội dung khá mỏng và có một số câu hỏi trùng lặp. Tuy nhiên, tôi vẫn thấy chúng có phần hữu ích. Tuy nhiên, hầu hết các bài đăng Hỏi & Đáp này nhận được rất ít hoặc không có lưu lượng truy cập. Sau bản cập nhật thuật toán của Google vào tháng 10, chúng được nhắm mục tiêu là nội dung sơ sài. Tôi có nên sử dụng 'nofollow' cho tất cả các bài đăng Hỏi & Đáp này hay không, hoặc nếu không, tôi nên xử lý chúng như thế nào? Tôi sẽ đánh giá rất cao bất kỳ lời khuyên. Cảm ơn!!!

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I'm sorry for the terminology mix-up, what I meant was 'noindex' instead of 'nofollow.'

MisaPh said:

Thank you, and I apologize for the terminology mistake. What I meant was 'noindex' rather than 'nofollow.'

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oh... that's a TOTALLY different thing

MisaPh said:

So, if I want to add a 'noindex' tag to such Q&A posts, would that be okay?

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personally, I would not do it but sure, you can do it if it suits your needs!

Just make sure that the questions are NOT on the same URL as other content that is important and that you wish to rank, because if you noindex this content... well, it won't rank, of course

MisaPh said:

There are currently around 350 Q&A posts on the website, all of which are user-generated.

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you can do as others said and mark them as UGC, but I don't think it will impact your site negatively either way. I honestly don't understand why you stress about this so much. Did you read anywhere that UGC content affect rankings, or why do you want to mark these questions so badly? Now you've really made me curious

MisaPh said:

Each post contains text (including both the question and the answer) that is approximately 200-400 words in length.

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sounds like valuable content to me. I would not noindex this at all, to be honest...

Group the same questions into one, remove the not-so-good ones and make short answers longer. Don't hide your work from Google. Just make it super helpful for the people reading!

Are these Q&A added in the end of the other regular posts or for every Q&A a new post is crated? If it's the later then i would noindex those.

Using 'nofollow' for user-generated Q&A posts can be a smart move to prevent thin content issues and avoid passing link juice to low-value pages. However, if some of them provide value, consider consolidating similar questions into more comprehensive FAQs.I faced a similar situation on a client's site, and we saw improvements after using 'nofollow' and optimizing high-quality posts. Balance is key.

AlbinKurti said:

Are these Q&A added in the end of the other regular posts or for every Q&A a new post is crated? If it's the later then i would noindex those.

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These Q&A posts usually do not have internal links within their own content. They are also not set as internal links in other posts. Currently, should I noindex all the existing old posts and noindex new posts that will be created in the future or not?

maxmayer said:

Using 'nofollow' for user-generated Q&A posts can be a smart move to prevent thin content issues and avoid passing link juice to low-value pages. However, if some of them provide value, consider consolidating similar questions into more comprehensive FAQs.I faced a similar situation on a client's site, and we saw improvements after using 'nofollow' and optimizing high-quality posts. Balance is key.

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Should I noindex all of these old posts and noindex new posts that come up in the future, instead of using the 'nofollow' tag?

Consider using the 'noindex' attribute. This could be a more suitable option for pages of lower quality that you prefer not to have showing up in search results.