meta-data glossary
reference pages for the META SEO Inspector Google Chrome extension.
about robots meta tag
Controls whether search engine spiders are allowed to index a page and follow its links or not.
usage examples
index and follow links :
<meta name="robots" content="all">
no index but do follow links :
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
index but do not follow links :
<meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
common content values
Directive | |
---|---|
all | There are no restrictions for indexing or serving. This directive is the default value and has no effect if explicitly listed. |
noindex | Do not show this page, media, or resource in search results, this is the most effective way to remove URLs from the index when crawling is allowed. |
nofollow | Do not follow any links on a page or pass along any link equity. |
other content values
Directive | |
---|---|
noimageindex | Do not index any images on a page. |
none | Equal to using both the noindex and nofollow tags. |
noarchive | Should not show a cached link to this page on a SERP. |
nositelinkssearchbox | Do not show a sitelinks search box in the search results for this page. |
nosnippet | Do not show a snippet of this page (i.e. meta description) of this page on a SERP. |
unavailable_after | No longer index this page after a particular date. |
indexifembedded | Google is allowed to index the content of a page if it's embedded in another page. Only has an effect if it's accompanied by noindex. |
max-snippet: [number] | Use a maximum of [number] characters as a textual snippet for this search result. |
max-image-preview: [setting] | Set the maximum size of an image preview for this page in a search results. Settings can be "none", "standard" or "large". |
max-video-preview: [number] | Use a maximum of [number] seconds as a video snippet for videos on this page in search results. |
notranslate | Don't offer translation of this page in search results. |
obsolete content values
Directive | |
---|---|
follow | Do follow all the links on a page and pass equity to the linked pages even if the page isn't indexed; it’s the default, so it is not needed. |
index | Do index a page. Note that you don’t need to add this meta tag; it’s the default, so it is not needed. |
noodyp/noydir | Prevents search engines from using a page’s DMOZ description as the SERP snippet for this page. But, DMOZ was retired in early 2017, making this tag obsolete. |