Robots Meta Directives： Your Pocket Guide to Meta Robots Tag SEO [+FAQ]

For search engines to effectively crawl and index your website, employing robots meta directives is essential. However, if you’re not acquainted with the robots meta tag, you might find yourself at a loss on where to begin.That’s why we’ve crafted this comprehensive guide to assist you in incorporating the robots tag for SEO optimization purposes, including SEO services. This guide will cover topics such as:

Understanding Robot Meta Directives

The Two Types of Robots Meta Directives You Need to Know

11 Essential Parameters to Be Aware Of

FAQs on Robots Meta Directives

Continue reading to delve deeper into these topics! And for the latest tips and tricks on online business marketing, subscribe to our email newsletter!Robot meta directives, or robot meta tags, are snippets of code that guide search engine crawlers on how to navigate and index your website.These tags are crucial for ensuring that the right pages are indexed and displayed in search results.Before proceeding, it’s important to distinguish between robots.txt and robots meta directives. While they may seem to serve the same purpose, there is a key difference. Robots.txt offers recommendations on how to crawl and index pages on your site.It is more of a suggestion for search engines to follow.Conversely, robots meta directives provide more definitive instructions on how to crawl and index your site.There are two types of meta directives you can establish on your pages to aid search engines in crawling and indexing. We’ll briefly cover them:Meta robots tagThe first type of robots tag for SEO is the meta robots tag, which allows you to control indexing behavior at the page level.Integrate this code into the header of your website. The code may look like this:

<meta name=”robots” content=“[parameter]”>

With this tag, you can implement multiple parameters as long as they are for the same robot.X-robots-tagThe second type of robots meta directive is the x-robots-tag, which allows you to control indexing at the page level and for specific page elements.Implement this tag in the header of your website. An example of this tag is as follows:

Header (“X-Robots-Tag: [parameter]”, true);

Overall, the x-robots-tag offers more flexibility than the meta robots tag.When setting up your robots meta directives, you’ll need to define parameters within the code to help search engine crawlers understand how to crawl and index the page.Here are 11 critical parameters to be aware of:These are the parameters you’ll use when implementing robots meta directives and instructing search engines, such as Google, on how to index your site.Have any lingering questions about robots meta directives?Check out our convenient FAQ section!Do all search engines support all parameters?No. Not all search engines will recognize the 11 parameters we listed above when indexing your site. Google is the only search engine that recognizes all shared parameters.Other search engines have varying support for these tags.For instance, Bing acknowledges many of the tags, but one it doesn’t recognize is noimageindex. So, if you’re aiming to use the robots meta tag for other search engines, you may need to do some research to see what tags are compatible.Do you need to use both meta robots tag and x-robots tag?No! It is unnecessary to use both types of meta tags.Choose the one that best suits your website’s requirements.Can you implement robots meta directives on third-party sites?With many businesses utilizing third-party platforms like WordPress or Shopify to host their sites, many wonder if they can implement the robots meta tag. The answer is yes.Many third-party hosts allow you to implement the robots meta directives required for your site. The method of implementation will vary depending on the site host.For example, with WordPress, you can use the Yoast SEO plugin to add the meta directives.For a site builder like Squarespace, you can modify your page settings or use Code Injection to add the necessary tags. You may need to conduct some research to determine how to implement the robots tag for SEO on your chosen website builder.Why are robots meta directives important?After learning about robots meta directives, you may wonder why this feature is crucial. Why is it essential to implement this code on your site?There are two main reasons for implementing the robots meta tag on your site:Implementing the robots tag for SEO can be overwhelming, especially if you’re not familiar with website backend editing or coding.That’s where the experts at WebFX can assist. Our team of over 500+ marketing specialists can help you implement your robots meta directives.With our SEO services, we can not only help you implement your robots meta tag but also optimize your site for better search engine rankings.Better rankings lead to increased qualified traffic and leads for your business. Ready to improve your site’s search engine rankings?Contact us online or call us at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist!