I would normally let it be indexed, as some visitors may in fact search for this. But it also depends how big the support section is, especially in a relation to the rest of the site.

E.g. do you mean just about us, contact us, FAQ page, privacy, ToS pages or does it go beyond this (many FAQs, one page for each question generating lots of thin pages, some other thin pages etc).

So if you have just a handful of "support pages" I would not worry about it.

Well there are tons of support pages.. if I have to count more than 1000 i guess... What is the better solution for it?
1. Do nothing and let it be indexed... However, they would be eating up Google's crawl budget which may cause into my main pages not getting cached...

2. configure robots.txt to disallow access to support pages... though it doesn't stop it from getting indexed... But saves crawl budget though...

3. No Index,follow ... that's it...

which one would you prefer?

More than 1000?! What on earth do you consider "support"? Obviously something more than just Contact, Legal, Site Search and Delivery Options.

The key question is whether the content in this area is useful or appropriate as entry pages. That's "entry pages" in the absolute sense: first-time site visitors. People who already know the site shouldn't have to rely on a search engine to find your stuff. (Not saying it doesn't happen-- but that's a problem with site design.) Do you have a lot of first-time visitors heading straight for your Return Policies?

Once a search engine finds that everything in a certain directory is noindexed, they should slow down on crawling that directory-- especially if the individual pages hardly ever change. I don't think "crawl budget" is a major cause for concern in this situation. It's more something to worry about if, for example, every page on your site can be reached by five different URLs.

Thanks for the quick reply lucy.. the support section is break down into forum part where people discuss about problems they are having with themes and plugins... so every problem creates one different page. so it's kind of big.. And that sucks, right.. And about the page reaching from different urls, that is the problem I take heavy consideration... Cheers for the awesome reply though..

Something sounds unusual here.

Support is support. 1 page or 1m makes no difference. You let these be indexed because they are SITE CONTENT.

As for G's scan budget, you let them worry about that, after all, it's their dime to scan YOUR STUFF and you aren't charging them to do that.

There is CONTENT and there is THIN CONTENT, and part of that is tied up on Adsense and Adwords and the Great Black Machine....

But is truly support for the site, or the products, or whatever it might be (rain dancing?) THAT is content. Though you might want to take a look at whether it truly takes 1000 pages to do that!

Great Tangor... I guess I have to think the same way... The problem i had is that Google the weirdo is not caching the inner pages... And I though it has to do something with G's crawl budget.. Even in the sitemap -- the top spot is the homepage and other spots are taken by support forum pages... Which may have been the reason why G is not caching the main pages... It's seriously weird..

Sadly, with any SE, we do run into attrition by numbers, ie, how many freakin' pages do we need to do the site? If ecommerce with thousands of products, that might be double that in pages.

The SE's don't run out of steam, or even time, but they do get bored with the same old same old site after site....

So if they seem concentrated on "other" pages it might just be because those pages are fresh, new, different, original content... and I am here to tell you that B, G and DDG all want that! Do I need add a more more exclamations? ! ... or explanations?

So...

There best be parts of any website that are UNIQUE, SPECIAL, and So SuperDUPER that that's where the SE will focus and bring traffic... and those pages best lead to the rest of the "stuff" on the site by logical menu/links.

After all, how many Red Widget sites are out there? How many are cookie cutter layout (widget>red>care>feeding>sales>repo>heaven>heck>) are there?

Focus on site content. Always. Can't go wrong with that.

the support section is break down into forum part where people discuss about problems they are having with themes and plugins

I think most of us here considered the "support" section of a site to be something else... utility pages, as aakk9999p suggested, pages like "about us, contact us, FAQ page, privacy, ToS pages" etc.

If problems are truly being discussed and resolved, then the discussion pages, which you describe as "support", are kind of like this thread in this forum... where we try to resolve various issues. In WebmasterWorld's case, we're not selling any products, so our support tends to be far ranging.

I'm guessing that you are selling the products that you support, and the discussions ought to be popular with your users. If they aren't as popular as the link juice they consume, then you've got a structural problem, or a moderation problem. Or maybe the rules of your forum aren't encouraging good discussion. We don't offer public site reviews here for a bunch of reasons. One of them is that such discussions are generally not self-contained... they often don't contain a statement of the problem and its resolution... just a "hey, look at this and tell me what's wrong", and that's not really productive discussion. Though that may be what your users need, it doesn't make for content that is of general interest.

so every problem creates one different page. so it's kind of big

Possibly, you should look at the structure here on WebmasterWorld, and at the structure of support forums on other tech product sites. If I understand you correctly, it sounds like your site structure is too flat. I'm thinking that though each problem creates a different page, by sufficiently categorizing these pages into prescribed areas on your site, you could limit their sprawl over your interface.

I think you understand that you shouldn't link to everything from home. Go deeper with discussion material that doesn't attract an audience. Ultimately, the pages that have gotten links from elsewhere will survive in the serps, and the rest won't be draining link juice from other pages.

It sounds almost as if you've got this set up on blog software, so you're getting too many recent posts on your home page. If that's the case, maybe you've got to rethink the site structure.

Tangor and Robert --- Awesome guys.. Really appreciate those amazing suggestions...

Looks like this convo is winding down but I didn't see a clear answer to the question I was intrigued by. Let's forget whether or not the pages should exist, and how they should be housed in the architecture. For the sake of this convo let's say a site has 100 core pages of the site (call it a brochure site, as it's for prospects to learn about our products, features, and resources) we want to get the most traffic and we really wants indexed, but the products are so popular and intricate, thousands of users are participating in a discussion forum asking questions and providing answers...these have accumulated to over 10,000 pages.

Should these pages be indexed or not? Should we just have one page for discussion/support that people can find in search, and then gate the entire discussion/support forum?

One has to make a determination of what is CONTENT and what is NOT CONTENT. If those 10,000 pages of HOT ACTION are not selling product, and that's what you want more than anything in the world, then KILL THOSE PAGES with NOINDEX and go about your day. But think about that twice before you do that... as those pages MIGHT JUST BE the only reason a SE is showing your stuff organically.

This is a simple A/B test. Look at what you have over a 30 day period, then NOINDEX those pesky forum pages for an equal 30 day period, then look at your clicks, sales, and what all might be.

At that point, after 60 days, you can decide if you want a choke point or not. And also determine your sales metrics at the same time.

There are no hard and fast rules here, only what works in any given scenario.