Google’s Martin Splitt answered a query about how Googlebot responds to a pre-render meta tag that has the worth of 404 web page not discovered. It’s an excellent query as a result of that is the sort of meta tag, a non-standard meta ingredient, isn’t typically encountered so it’s good to know what to do when one thing like this comes up.
The particular person asking the query needed to find out about how Google would possibly reply to a meta tag within the head part that has the identify “prerender-status-code” and a worth of “404” which signifies that the requested web page is just not discovered.
The query was requested by an individual named Martin and Martin Splitt of Google is the one who answered it.
That is the query :
“Martin is asking: What does Googlebot do when it finds <meta identify=”prerender-status-code” content material=”404″> ?”
Martin Splitt answered:
“Nicely Martin, that’s straightforward to say, Googlebot at the moment ignores that standing code.
I assume that is coming from a single web page software that’s client-side rendered and also you wish to keep away from soft-404s, in that case contemplate including <meta identify=”robots” content material=”noindex”> or redirect to a web page the place the server responds with the 404 standing code.
For extra data on that see our documentation at builders.google.com/search.”
What’s Prerender-Standing-Code?
The prerender-status-code meta ingredient (generally known as meta tag) is just not an official meta tag and there’s no documentation on it on the Worldwide Internet Consortium (W3C.org), the place the official HTML requirements are created.
That is extra of a proprietary or non-standard meta ingredient. Non-standard meta components are usually are not a part of the official W3C HTML specs. Some non-standard meta components are browser-specific or are created for particular functions. Consequently, they might not be supported by completely different browsers or by search engines like google and yahoo. and their conduct might not be constant throughout completely different browsers
The prerender-status-code meta ingredient is an instance of a non-standard meta ingredient that additionally occurs to not be supported by Google.
One other non-standard meta ingredient that isn’t supported by Google is the meta key phrases ingredient. There isn’t a reference to it on the W3C.org and it was by no means part of the official HTML requirements. It was a meta ingredient that was invented by search engines like google and yahoo within the Nineteen Nineties.
The X-UA-Appropriate meta ingredient is an instance of a browser-specific non-standard meta ingredient that’s an outdated meta ingredient that was particular to the previous Web Explorer internet browser.
That is an instance of the X-UA-Appropriate meta ingredient:
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Appropriate" content material="IE=edge">
The takeaway from Martin’s reply in regards to the prerender-status-code meta ingredient is that many non-standard meta components usually are not supported by Google.
One other takeaway is that not each meta tag is part of the official HTML requirements which could be discovered on the World Extensive Internet Consortium web site (W3C.org). These non-official meta components are known as non-standard meta components.
Extra data could be discovered at Google’s help web page about supported meta tags, which was final up to date on December 1, 2023.
Meta tags and attributes that Google helps
Hearken to the Google Workplace hours video on the 3:46 minute mark:
Featured Picture by Shutterstock/Jaaak
