After launching to much fanfare, the user-generated content on USAToday.com will not be indexed by Google or other search engines, ClickInfluence reports.
That's because the new services, including reader blogs and other social-networking and bookmarking features, are created using AJAX, a technology that is essentially invisible to search engine crawlers.
For USA Today, that means the potential advantage it might have enjoyed in search results is null and void.
It's unclear whether the move was a sacrifice made by USA Today in the name of user functionality - or whether it made the decision purposefully so that potentially inappropriate user-generated content would not be associated with the USA Today brand name in search results.
