Google’s John Mueller answered a query on Reddit a couple of generally used robots meta tag and what would occur if it was lacking. Mueller’s reply, whereas it is smart and is documented, should come as a shock to many publishers and SEOs.
Robots Meta Tag
The HTML meta factor communicates metadata. Metadata is machine readable info {that a} crawler like Googlebot can learn.
There are a lot of sorts of meta components just like the meta description factor however the Robots Meta Factor is totally different in that it might management the search engine crawlers.
The data communicated by the robots meta tag is known as a directive, which implies that robotic crawlers are obligated to obey the directions within the robots meta tag.
There are a lot of instructions to go alongside by means of the robots meta however the next meta tag is one that’s related to the query John Mueller answered.
The noindex, no comply with meta tag:
<meta identify="robots" content material="noindex, nofollow">
The above meta tag tells the search engine crawlers to not index the content material on the webpage and to not comply with any hyperlinks.
Probably the most widespread meta tags is that this one, which instructions engines like google to index the content material and comply with all of the hyperlinks:
<meta identify="robots" content material="index, comply with">
Whereas the above meta tag is widespread, there’s a vital quantity of confusion about it. There’s a line of reasoning that as a result of Google helps nofollow then it should suggest that Google helps the comply with directive.
I discovered plenty of authoritative web sites that say that Google makes use of the meta robots index, comply with meta tag.
However that’s not truly how Google makes use of these directives, as John Mueller makes clear in his reply.
See additionally: Google Solutions If Meta Robots Tags Have an effect on Search Rankings
What’s The Impact Of Leaving Out The Meta Robots Index Tag?
The individual on Reddit requested the next query:
“I’m a bit confused with a web site I’m engaged on.
So, that is what the meta snippets on a lot of the web sites I work on appear like:
<meta identify=’robots’ content material=’index, comply with ….
However, on the web site at hand, it’s lacking the ‘index’ tag.
My query is: What’s the impact of the location lacking the ‘index’ tag.”
John Mueller answered:
“The “index” robots meta tag has no perform (a minimum of in Google) – it’s fully ignored. Additionally “comply with”.
Google has https://builders.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/special-tags & https://builders.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/robots-meta-tag to doc the meta tags which have features. You should utilize anything, it’ll be ignored. <meta identify=”robots” content material=”topranking bestcheese”> is an choice, if you wish to throw folks off.”
Why Google Ignores Robots Index & Observe
The easy cause why Google ignores the robots index and comply with meta tag is as a result of indexing and comply with are the defaults.
Indexing and following hyperlinks is what search engine robots do, they don’t must be instructed to index content material and comply with hyperlinks as a result of that’s their function.
Google’s documentation on robots tags advises:
“The default values are index, comply with and don’t must be specified.”
The complete record of legitimate directives for Google is right here.
If the robots meta you wish to use isn’t’ listed there then Googlebot goes to disregard it.
Associated: How To Management Googlebot’s Interplay With Your Web site
Is Index, Observe Utterly Ineffective?
It’s true, documented and official that with regards to Googlebot, <meta identify=”robots” content material=”index, comply with”> is a waste of HTML house and is ignored by Googlebot.
Bing treats index, comply with in an analogous method however with a slight distinction, as described within the official Bing documentation for meta tags.
That is what Bing’s documentation says in regards to the index directive:
“By default we assume “index”, but when wanted you need to use <meta identify=”robots” content material=”index”> to explicitly state that we might index the web page.”
And that is what it says in regards to the comply with directive:
“By default we assume “comply with”, however you possibly can explicitly state “comply with” if that’s the case desired.”
In my 20+ years of working in search engine optimization creating web sites, optimizing them and rating them, I’ve all the time thought-about it a very good coverage to offer the bots what they count on and take a look at to not give them something that’s surprising. So if a meta description shouldn’t be mandatory then my impulse can be to depart it out as a result of the entire level of optimizing is to make it as simple as attainable for the various search engines to index and perceive the content material, which implies to eliminate something that may work in opposition to that aim.
On this case, it’s extremely seemingly it’s not going to have an impact by some means.
However… There’s one other method that comply with and index journey folks up.
Some publishers use this robots meta tag:
<meta identify="robots" content material="noindex, comply with">
Some websites advise that if the web page isn’t listed, the usage of the “comply with” directive compels the search engine to comply with the hyperlinks.
However that’s not true if there’s a “noindex” directive for the easy causes that Google can’t comply with a hyperlink on a web page that it isn’t listed. If it’s not within the index then the hyperlinks on these pages are usually not within the index.
Learn: How To Get Google To Index Your Web site (Rapidly)
Featured Picture by Shutterstock/Bangun Inventory Productions
