trung.ngo - check out this article I posted http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/crawl-optimization

that's where I got my "inspiration" from to consider using robots.txt instead...

I am thinking if I exclude more thin pages from being crawled (robots.txt) that may be better than my current "noindex, follow" - the thin pages are already "noindex, follow".

You are saying "unless there's evidence that the pages are taking up too much of the crawl bandwidth, it doesn't seem like too much of an issue to me." - but how would I know this? Fair to assume for a website with 5,000 pages this is probably not an issue?

I am concerned with the "noindex, follow" Google may think "ahh, we have seen all this stuff before. Thanks for keeping out of our index, but we are still going to devalue your original content indexed pages because we crawl and see all this thin stuff." I am thinking with the robots.txt it would potentially be a stronger signal that could help my indexed pages. Or you think it is a minor and probably not relevant?

Hi Keri, There are some good comments but none really answer this question and that is why I am trying to approach from different angles. Maybe you can shed some light on this:
AJ Kohn wrote this great article: http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/crawl-optimization - he talks about using robots.txt to exclude thin content in order to increase frequency with qhich indexed content gets crawled, supposedly helping rankings. In this great whiteboard Friday, Rand suggests using "noindex, follow" - http://moz.com/blog/handling-duplicate-content-across-large-numbers-of-urls.

I am trying to get more light on this (people who have experience with this), but struggle to get answers.

Does anyone have any testing evidence what is better to use for pages with thin content, yet important pages to keep on a website? I am referring to content shared across multiple websites (such as e-commerce, real estate etc). Imagine a website with 300 high quality pages indexed and 5,000 thin product type pages, which are pages that would not generate relevant search traffic. Question goes: Does the interlinking value achieved by "noindex, follow" outweigh the negative of Google having to crawl all those "noindex" pages? With robots.txt one has Google's crawling focus on just the important pages that are indexed and that may give ranking a boost. Any experiments with insight to this would be great.

I do get the story about "make the pages unique", "get customer reviews and comments" etc....but the above question is the important question here.

Hi Pete, I just wanted to confirm, based on what you wrote:
"I don't think the picture- and video-heavy pages are going to rank all that well by themselves. It's just a question of whether those additional pages are diluting your MLS listing pages (by using similar regional keywords, etc.)."

I did following:

1. Deleted words "Home" and "Condo" from the title tag and H1 so the neighborhood name is still in title tag and H1, but no mention of home, condo, real estate etc.
2. all written content has been moved from "guides" (where pictures and videos are) to lower part of MLS result pages and I imagine over a 1-2 month period the MLS result pages will get the SEO credit for this unique written content (despite no 301 redirect)
3. I interlink from picture / video pages to MLS result pages with "neighborhood homes for sale"

My hypothesis is that over the next few months as G gets a better idea of my website (as the site gets more popular - still only 5 months old) G will know what to rank for "neighborhood homes for sale" search terms.

Makes sense?

Thats right. Zero search value. Maybe I can simply change Title tag, H1 etc. Get rid of keyword (ex "Honolulu") a d instead call ("Gallery 1"). In this way I can keep structure without diluting ranking potential for MLS result pages?

Interesting, thx. Can I do following: Add "noindex, follow" to those guide pages? In this way they wont compete w MLS result pages, which they currently do. Issue is all that geeat unique picture and video content wont be indexed by Google.....maybe not a big issue?

thx, Pete. Guides are more for users who are curious about pictures and videos - not something I care about ranking for. Ex: http://www.honoluluhi5.com/waikiki-condos-real-estate/

MLS result pages is my life and I moved a lot of written content to MLS result pages to add unique content. Ex: http://www.honoluluhi5.com/oahu/honolulu/metro/waikiki-condos/ (you will see unique content below map and thumb MLS pictures).

I feel this layout is ideal long-term. I link from guide (as you can see above) to the corresponding MLS result page. Hope this makes sense

thx a lot. "Viewing it as manipulative" - it makes sense. I will certainly refrain from doing so.

I keep saying last question, but this should be: moving some written content from Page A to Page B (yet keeping Page A, just less content remaining on Page A) is OK and will after a while be viewing as Page B's original content and Page B will get the SEO credit. This is done without a 301 re-direct, since Page A is still a page with pictures that are original and unique and I want Google to index all those pictures. Just that a bunch of unique written content was moved from Page A to Page B. I have moved written content from about 200 different guide type pages to 200 MLS result pages, as it makes more sense to have it there. Would it be safer to include the 301 re-direct and simply lose the picture indexing to play it safe?

thx. 1 last slight different, but related question: What is your view in placing written content above other content in source code, but on webpage written content displays below other content? In my case: MLS thumb pictures and descriptions (same as other realtors' websites) show on top of page and as users scroll down they see a lot of written unique original content I have. Search engines like written content higher on page, so would it be a good idea to place written content above the MLS data in the source code, though on webpage it will still display below MLS data.

thx, Sam. Here is a video from Matt Cutts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpK1VGJN4XY - it appears Google is OK with hidden text that makes sense for user.

For my site I have a lot of read more types like here:
http://www.honoluluhi5.com/oahu-condos/
http://www.honoluluhi5.com/oahu/honolulu-city-real-estate/

As you can see from those 2 links, I have created with only the user in mind and nothing else. In order to play it safe, maybe I should just show all the text somehow, even though it compromises user experience.