Meta Tags Google Advice

by Jerry West
Updated: May 6, 2011

Note: If you are looking for a comprehensive list of Meta Tags and how to use them in your pages properly, please see my comprehensive article: Meta Tags Explained.

Have you read in an article, a forum, or been told by an “SEO Expert” that they know of a “secret” Google Meta Tag that will increase your rankings in Google, plain and simply…they are lying to you.

The Bottom Line: Google doesn’t have Meta tags; there are no “secrets.” These “gurus” are just attempting to “con” you into believing them. Beware. The only “Meta tags” that Google follows are the ones I’ve listed below. I have also covered the options of how they should be used.

Googlebot: noarchive

This tag will not allow Google to display any cached content. To place the googlebot: noarchive into your web page, use the following:

<meta name=”googlebot” content=”noarchive”>
Googlebot: nosnippet

This tag will not allow Google to display excerpted text in the SERPs or cached content. To place the googlebot: nosnippet into your web page, use the following:

<meta name=”googlebot” content=”nosnippet”>
Googlebot: noindex

This tag is similar to the robots Meta element that denies indexing of your web page. To use the googlebot: noindex on your web page, use the following:

<meta name=”googlebot” content=”noindex”>
Googlebot: nofollow

With the use of this tag it will instruct Google not to pass any PageRank or link popularity to the link served. However, Googlebot may follow the web page link and index the page referenced. To use the googlebot: nofollow tag on your web page, use the following:

<meta name=”googlebot” content=”nofollow”>

Do you see any tag that will increase your search engine rankings? Neither do I. What these so called “experts” may be referring to is a Meta tag that will validate the XML sitemap feature with Google Webmaster Central, but that has nothing to do with your ranking in Google.

Be careful out there, it seems there is always someone waiting to steal your money and time.

Recommendation:

You will not need to use any of these tags unless you want Google to do something specific with your website. The Google Meta tags that are listed above are some of the very few Meta tags that Google will even read, index, and obey.

Good Tip:

If you want Google to use the description that you’ve written in your Meta description tag, simply place your targeted keyword phrase within it and Google will use your Meta description. If you choose not too, Google will take a snippet of content from your web page that has that keyword phrase in it. Most of the time, that will not read very smoothly.

For more info, see Google’s Remove Page .

Back to Meta Tags Explained & Uncovered.
Other References: Meta Author, Meta Expires Tag Analyzed, Meta Content Type.

Meta Tags Google Advice, Meta Tags Google Search – Information for webmasters & search engine optimizers.

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Jerry West is the Director of Internet Marketing for Web Marketing Now. He has been consulting on the web since 1996 and has assisted hundreds of companies gain an upper-hand over their competition. Visit Web Marketing Now for the latest in marketing tips that are tested and proven.

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