TIPS and TRICKS
Meta Tags Google Advice
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 from an "SEO Expert" that they know of a "secret" Google Meta Tag that will increase your rankings in Google its plain and simple...they are lying to you.
Google doesn't have Meta tags; there are no "secrets" they are just attempting to "con" you into believing them. Beware. The only "Meta tags" that Google follows are the ones I've listed below and I have 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 excerpt 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 either.
Be careful out there, it seems there is always someone out there 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 wrote in your Meta description tag, just simply place your targeted keyword phrase in your Meta description tag and Google will use your Meta description. If you choose not too then Google will take a snippet of content from your web page that has that keyword phrase in it. Most of the time, it doesn't read very smoothly.
For more info, see Google's Remove Page .
