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How to use the NOODP tag to influence your search
engine listings
If your web site is listed in the Open Directory Project
(ODP, dmoz.org) then Google and MSN will often use the text
that the ODP uses to describe your web site in their own
search results.
Unfortunately, the descriptions in the Open Directory Project
are often outdated and they don't reflect the current status
of a web site. That means that your web site might be listed
with an outdated description in the search results on Google
and MSN.
How to get rid of the ODP description
Fortunately, there's a way to tell Google and MSN not
to use the ODP description for your web site. You can direct
Google and MSN not to use the ODP as a source by adding
a new Meta tag to your web pages.
To prevent all search engines (that support the Meta tag)
from using the ODP description for the page's description,
use the following HTML tag:
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP">
To specifically prevent Google from using this information
for a page's description, use <META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="NOODP">. If
you just want to prevent MSN from using the description,
use <META NAME="msnbot" CONTENT="NOODP">.
Note that once you add this Meta tag to your pages, it
may take some time until a new description of your web
page will appear in the search results of Google and MSN.
You might wonder why Yahoo does not support the NOODP
tag. Yahoo operates its own directory so it does not need
to pull the web page descriptions from the ODP.
There are many more Meta tags that allow you to
influence search engines
In addition to the new NOODP tag, there are many more
Meta tags that allow you to influence how search engines
handle your web pages.
For example, you can tell search engines where your business
is located (that's useful for local search features), you
can tell search engines if they should index a web page
or not and much more.
We recommend IBP's Website
Optimization Editor to add these tags to your web
pages and to optimize the contents of your web pages.
IBP's Website Optimization Editor allows you to quickly
edit your web pages:
- Quickly change the web page title, the Meta tags, the
link texts, the IMG ALT attributes etc. with a few mouse
clicks.
IBP displays the keyword density in real-time so that
you can quickly apply the perfect keyword density to
all web page elements.
- Quickly add the new NOODP tag to all of your web pages
so that Google, Yahoo and other search engines don't
use the outdated Open Directory Project description of
your web site anymore.
- Quickly create Meta tags for local search to your web
pages. IBP supports regional Meta tags, Meta GEO tags
and the Meta ICBM tag. Tell search engines the exact
position of your business so that customers can find
you.
The new NOODP tag is an easy way to tell search engines
how to describe your web site in the search results. You
should also use the other available Meta tags that are supported
by search engines to make sure that your web site gets maximum
exposure. If you haven't done it yet, download the latest
IBP version here.
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