What to do about "blocked by meta-robots"?
-
The crawl report tells me "Notices are interesting facts about your pages we found while crawling". One of these interesting facts is that my blog archives are "blocked by meta robots".
Articles are not blocked, just the archives.
What is a "meta" robot?
I think its just normal (since the article need only be crawled once) but want a second opinion. Should I care about this?
-
Meta robots refers to the < meta name="robots" > tag at the page header level. This is usually the case when a blog is set up with an SEO program like All In One SEO for example, where you can manually set which content is blocked. It's common to block archives, tags, and other sections, in the theory that allowing these to be crawled could either cause duplicate content issues, or drain link value from the primary category navigation.
-
In general, there are two ways you can block crawlers from indexing your content.
-
You can add a Disallow entry to your robots.txt file
-
You can add a meta tag to your pages:
What you are saying in either case is "please do not list this content in your search engine".
In general, you would not want to block your archives. There certainly can be specific cases where you only want the public to see your most current content, in which case you can block it.
-
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to explain "No Return Tags" Error from non-existing page?
In the Search Console of our Google Webmaster account we see 3 "no return tags" errors. The attached screenshot shows the detail of one of these errors. I know that annotations must be confirmed from the pages they are pointing to. If page A links to page B, page B must link back to page A, otherwise the annotations may not be interpreted correctly. However, the originating URL (/#!/public/tutorial/website/joomla) doesn't exist anymore. How could these errors still show up? Screenshot%202016-07-11%2017.36.27.png?dl=0
Technical SEO | | Maximuxxx0 -
How should I deal with "duplicate" content in an Equipment Database?
The Moz Crawler is identifying hundreds of instances of duplicate content on my site in our equipment database. The database is similar in functionality to a site like autotrader.com. We post equipment with pictures and our customers can look at the equipment and make purchasing decisions. The problem is that, though each unit is unique, they often have similar or identical specs which is why moz (and presumably google/bing) are identifying the content as "duplicate". In many cases, the only difference between listings are the pictures and mileage- the specifications and year are the same. Ideally, we wouldn't want to exclude these pages from being indexed because they could have some long-tail search value. But, obviously, we don't want to hurt the overall SEO of the site. Any advice would be appreciated.
Technical SEO | | DohenyDrones0 -
SEO question: Need help on rel="alternate" hreflang="x"
Hi all, we have webcontent in 3 languages (official belgian yellow pages), we use a separate domain per language, these are also our brands.
Technical SEO | | TruvoDirectories
ex. for the restaurant Wagamamahttp://www.goudengids.be/wagamama-antwerpen-2018/ corresponds to nl-be
http://www.pagesdor.be/wagamama-antwerpen-2018/ corresponds to fr-be
http://www.pagesdor.be/wagamama-antwerpen-2018/ corresponds to en-be The trouble is that sometimes I see the incorrect urls appearing when doing a search in google, ex. when searching on google.be (dutch=nederlands=nl-be) I see the www.pagesdor.be version appearing (french) I was trying to find a fix for this within https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=nl , but this only seems to apply to websites which use SUBdomains for language purposes. I'm not sure if can work for DOMAINS. Can anyone help me out? Kind regards0 -
How to solve the meta : A description for this result is not available because this site's robots.txt. ?
Hi, I have many URL for commercialization that redirects 301 to an actual page of my companies' site. My URL provider say that the load for those request by bots are too much, they put robots text on the redirection server ! Strange or not? Now I have a this META description on all my URL captains that redirect 301 : A description for this result is not available because this site's robots.txt. If you have the perfect solutions could you share it with me ? Thank You.
Technical SEO | | Vale70 -
Rel="canonical" and rewrite
Hi, I'm going to describe a scenario on one of my sites, I was wondering if someone could tell me what is the correct use of rel="canonical" here. Suppose I have a rewrite rule that has a rule like this: RewriteRule ^Online-Games /main/index.php So, in the index file, do I set the rel="canonical" to Online-Games or /main/index.php? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | webtarget0 -
Will training videos available on the "members only" section of a site contribute to the sites ranking?
Hello, I got asked a question recently as to whether training videos on the deeper pages of a website (that you can only access if you are a member and log in) will help with the sites ranking. On the SEOMoz software these deeper pages have been crawled as far as I can tell with errors reported on pages from the "members only" section of the site, leading me to believe the members only pages and their content will contribute to the sites overall ranking profile. I have suggested uploading the informational videos on the main pages of the site for now, making them accessible to all visitors and putting them in a more obvious place to encourage more sharing and views, however I've also said I would check it out with some experts so any information will be greatly appreciated! Many thanks 🙂 Charlotte
Technical SEO | | CharlotteWaller0 -
Different levels of PA without "www"?
Hello Guy´s! The last days I have been surprised to see that the levels of PA, mR, and mT vary when it is or not the "www" in the URL: 1. http://patagonline.com/viajes-argentina 2. http://www.patagonline.com/viajes-argentina Both URL's correspond to the keyword "viajes Argentina" our incoming links... In this case, it´s convenient to do a 301redirect from URL 1 to 2? Thanks a lot for your help!!
Technical SEO | | maty0