Meta Robots Tag - What's it really mean?
-
I used on a handful of pages recently and noticed that they're still popping up in the Google search index. I'd like to keep these from appearing, so I figured I needed a directive statement with stronger semantic meaning.
From what I understand, is what I'm looking for. Using this will keep Google from not only crawling the page, but indexing the page, as well.
I decided to see what the official robotstxt.org website said about it, so I checked (link here):
the NOFOLLOW directive only applies to links on this page. It's entirely likely that a robot might find the same links on some other page without a NOFOLLOW (perhaps on some other site), and so still arrives at your undesired page.
So, is their explanation saying that the page itself will be indexed, but the content / links on it won't be followed / indexed? Let me hear your thoughts, mozzers.
-
You can find out your desired meta robots setting by asking yourself two questions:
noindex or index: do you want this particular page to show up as a listing in the Google results for a query? Yes: index, No: noindex.
nofollow or follow: do you want the links on this page to be crawled (followed) by the search engine robots, thereby allowing them access to the deeper pages it links to (even though that particular page might even be noindexed). Yes: follow, No: nofollow
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
-
Blocking Standard pages with Robots.txt (t&c's, shipping policy, pricing & privacy policies etc)
Hi I've just had best practice site migration completed for my old e-commerce store into a Shopify environment and I see in GSC that it's reporting my standard pages as blocked by robots.txt, such as these below examples. Surely I don't want these blocked ? is that likely due to my migrators or s defaults setting with Shopify does anyone know? : t&c's shipping policy pricing policy privacy policy etc So in summary: Shall I unblock these? What caused it Shopify default settings or more likely my migration team? All Best Dan
Reporting & Analytics | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Redirecting one domain to another using utm tags
I have two live websites, which have both been live for over 10 years, so we have plenty of backlinks to both...domain1.com & domain2.com. Domain 1 and all urls is being merged into domain2.com. So 301 redirects will be setup for every page of the site....domain1.com/abc-1234/ to > domain2.com/abc-1234/ In Google analytics for domain2.com we want to be able to see which visits we have received as a result of a redirect from domain1.com. It is possible to see these visits that come in via organic, referrals and social etc, as those will come to us with the referral as domain1.com. However, with direct traffic, i.e. if someone types domain1.com into their search bar, these visits will be assigned as direct and we are not able to tell in GA if those users have typed in domain2.com, or domain1.com to get to our webpage. There are some suggestions in forums of adding utm_source tracking to all redirects (and add canonicals to those urls pointing to the non utm_source version), but my concern is that Google is going to have to go through one extra step to reach the page on the redirected domain. So without the utm source code Google will follow this route
Reporting & Analytics | | Sayers
domain1.com/123/ to domain2.com/123/ With the utm source code Google will follow this route
domain.com/123/ to domain2.com/123/?utm_source... then see's canonical, so moves to domain2.com/123/ So essentially I am giving Google one extra step to follow before it gets to the equivalent page on the new site. Is this an issue, and/or are there any other ways to track this redirection without adding extra parameters to the url?0 -
Google Tag Manager for cross-domain tracking
Anybody experience with setting up Google Tag Manager to contain the Analytics script including cross domain tracking? We have a marketingwebsite .com / .com.br and an application running in a subdomain, but have always had some difficulties in getting the cross domain tracking working. Would be great to be able to exchange some experience with fellow Mozzers.
Reporting & Analytics | | jorisbrabants1 -
Enchance Ecommerce Tag Fired on every page i visit why?
Hello Experts, I have added given below code (A) on my website and given below (B) setting in GTM. Now whenever i visit the site then two tags fired that is google analytic and enchance ecommerce. GA tag fired that is fine but why enhance ecommerce tag fired even if i visit any page? I think enhane ecommerce tag should be fired when i click on addtocart right?A)```
Reporting & Analytics | | bkmitesh
dataLayer.push({ 'event':'addToCart', 'ecommerce':{ 'currencyCode':'EUR', 'add':{ // 'add' actionFieldObject measures. 'products':[{ // adding a product to a shopping cart. 'name':'Triblend Android T-Shirt', 'id':'12345', 'price':'15.25', 'brand':'Google', 'category':'Apparel', 'variant':'Gray', 'quantity':1 }] } } }); Track type : Event Event Category: `Ecommerce` Event Action: `Add to Cart` Enable Enhanced Ecommerce Features: `true` Use Data Layer: `true` Basic Settings - Document Path: `{{url path}}` Firing Rule: `{{event}}` equals `addToCart``Thanks!`0 -
Schema Rich Snippet Markup tool is validating the markup but it says it isn't in Webmaster Tools.
All my Schema Rich Snippets are being validated in the webmaster tools Rich Snippet tester tool here http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets But when I go take a peek at the new tab in Webmaster tools when I'm signed into my analytics account it shows there are no active Markups on my site. Has anyone else been having this issue? If it says it's working in the Google tool from the link above should I even be worried if its not showing up when I'm signed into my analytics account? Thanks.
Reporting & Analytics | | DCochrane0 -
Solving link and duplicate content errors created by Wordpress blog and tags?
SEOmoz tells me my site's blog (a Wordpress site) has 2 big problems: a few pages with too many links and duplicate content. The problem is that these pages seem legit the way they are, but obviously I need to fix the problem, sooooo... Duplicate content error: error is a result of being able to search the blog by tags. Each blog post has mutliple tags, so the url.com/blog/tag pages occasionally show the same articles. Anyone know of a way to not get penalized for this? Should I exclude these pages from being crawled/sitemapped? Too many links error: SEOmoz tells me my main blog page has too many links (both url.com/blog/ and url.com/blog-2/) - these pages have excerpts of 6 most recent blog posts. I feel like this should not be an error... anyone know of a solution that will keep the site from being penalized by these pages? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | RUNNERagency0 -
Google Analytics Title tag vs landing page visitors numbers
Hi folks, Just wondering if anyone has any ideas as to why im getting different results in Google analytics. I'm using the Content Efficiency Analysis Report from http://www.kaushik.net which is absolutely awesome. When I search via my title tag I get 920 Unique Visitors over the month but when I search via the landing page URL with the same title tag I get 28. Any ideas to why their should be such a difference. I've also noticed that on that page i'm also getting a Rel Cononical TRUE using a site crawl. Any ideas are much appreciated
Reporting & Analytics | | acs1110 -
Duplicate content? Split URLs? I don't know what to call this but it's seriously messing up my Google Analytics reports
Hi Friends, This issue is crimping my analytics efforts and I really need some help. I just don't trust the analytics data at this point. I don't know if my problem should be called duplicate content or what, but the SEOmoz crawler shows the following URLS (below) on my nonprofit's website. These are all versions of our main landing pages, and all google analytics data is getting split between them. For instance, I'll get stats for the /camp page and different stats for the /camp/ page. In order to make my report I need to consolidate the 2 sets of stats and re-do all the calculations. My CMS is looking into the issue and has supposedly set up redirects to the pages w/out the trailing slash, but they said that setting up the "ref canonical" is not relevant to our situation. If anyone has insights or suggestions I would be grateful to hear them. I'm at my wit's end (and it was a short journey from my wit's beginning ...) Thanks. URL www.enf.org/camp www.enf.org/camp/ www.enf.org/foundation www.enf.org/foundation/ www.enf.org/Garden www.enf.org/garden www.enf.org/Hante_Adventures www.enf.org/hante_adventures www.enf.org/hante_adventures/ www.enf.org/oases www.enf.org/oases/ www.enf.org/outdoor_academy www.enf.org/outdoor_academy/
Reporting & Analytics | | DMoff0