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When it comes to optimizing a website for search engines, proper use of meta tags is an important aspect that can’t be ignored. Among these meta tags, the robots meta tag and X-Robots-Tag play a vital role in search engine optimization (SEO). In this blog post, we will be discussing what these two tags are and how to use them effectively.
What is a Robots Meta Tag?
A robots meta tag is a HTML tag that tells search engine robots what to do with a particular page on your website. This specific tag is located in the head section of a webpage. There are several directives that can be set with a robot meta tag which are as follows:
1. Index: This directive informs search engine robots whether the page should be indexed or not.
Example: <meta name="robots" content="index">
2. Noindex: This would be used when you don’t want a page to be indexed in the search engines.
Example: <meta name="robots" content="noindex">
3. Follow: This directive tells the search engine robots to follow all links on the page.
Example: <meta name="robots" content="follow">
4. Nofollow: This directive tells the search engine robots to not follow any links on the page.
Example: <meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
5. Noarchive: Noarchive directive tells Google Search to not show a cached link for a page
that appears in the search engine results page (SERP).
Example: <meta name="robots" content="noarchive">
X-Robots-Tag
The X-Robots-Tag is another tag that provides a more powerful way to control the indexing of web pages. It is similar to the Meta Robots tag, but it can be added to the HTTP headers of a page. X-Robots-Tag supports more advanced directives than the Meta Robots tag, making it more versatile and customizable.
# Example 1:
If you want to disallow search engine robots from crawling or indexing a specific page on your website and a file, you can use an X-Robots-Tag HTTP response header.
X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow
This directive tells search engines not to index the page and not to follow the links leading from that page.
# Example 2:
If you want to block images from being indexed on your website, you can use the following X-Robots-Tag header:
X-Robots-Tag: noimageindex
This directive tells search engines not to index images on the page.
# Example 3:
If a page contains duplicate content, it can be flagged using the X-Robots-Tag “noindex” value.
X-Robots-Tag: noindex
This directive tells search engine robots not to index or serve the page in search results.
How to Add Meta Robots Tag and X-Robots-Tag in HTML?
Adding Meta Robots Tag to a page is quite simple. Here is an example:
<head>
<title>Page Title</title>
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
</head>
In this example, the noindex directive is used to instruct search engine robots not to index the page.
To add X-Robots-Tag headers to a page, you need to edit the server-side configuration file.
Here is an example:
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noindex, nofollow"
In this example, the X-Robots-Tag header is used to instruct search engine robots not to index or follow the links from the page.
Conclusion
Mastering Robots Meta Tag & X-Robots-Tag can significantly improve the SEO of your website. By using the Meta Robots tag and X-Robots-Tag, you can direct search engine robots to follow or ignore specific pages or elements of your website. Proper usage of these tags can ensure that your website is easily crawlable by search engine robots, making it highly visible on search engine results pages.
We hope this ultimate guide on mastering Robots Meta Tag and X-Robots-Tag has been helpful to you. For further information, you can visit the official Google resource page on the subject or ask for assistance from a professional digital marketing firm like HeyLead.
