A
few days ago, Yahoo announced support
for a new meta tag called "NOYDIR".
The new tag will complement the "NOODP" meta
tag that is already supported
by all major search engines.
What is the new NOYDIR
tag?
Yahoo, Google and other search
engines often use the title
and the abstracts that are
used in Open
Directory Project (ODP)
listings or in Yahoo
Directory listings for
their search result lists.
Unfortunately, the titles
and the descriptions that
are used in these directories
are often not the titles and
descriptions that webmasters
want to see in the search
results.
The reason for that is that
the editors of the directory
assign the titles and the
descriptions to the listed
web sites and not the webmasters
of the sites. Editors often
see web sites differently
than webmasters do.
In addition, these directory
descriptions often become
outdated and it is very difficult
to change the title and the
description of a web site
in a big directory.
As many webmasters didn't
like the ODP directory title
and description in the search
results on Google and other
search engines, search engines
invented the NOODP tag.
If the NOODP tag is used
on a web page, search engines
won't use the title and the
description of the Open Directory
Project entry for that web
page. Yahoo now did the same
with the NOYDIR tag.
How can you add the
new tag to your web pages?
Just add the following code
to the <HEAD> section
of your web pages:
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOYDIR">
If you insert that code snippet
on your web pages then Yahoo
won't use its directory description
for your web site in the organic
search results. If you also
don't want that the Open Directory
Project description is used
for your web site, insert
the following in the <HEAD> section
of your web pages:
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP">
How will the new tag
influence your rankings on
Yahoo?
If you use the new tag on
your web pages than Yahoo
will use the title of your
web pages in its search results.
The description will be created
based on the content of the
displayed web page.
Yahoo might still use the
Open Directory Description
so it is better to include
both tags on your pages if
you don't like your directory
descriptions:
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP,
NOYDIR ">
The NOYDIR tag does not mean
that the link from the Yahoo
directory won't be considered
in link popularity calculations.
A link from the Yahoo directory
to your web site will still
have a positive effect on
the link popularity of your
web site.
The new NOYDIR tag will be
supported by the
next IBP version that is
going to be released within
the next two weeks. The NOODP
tag and many other tags are already
supported by the current
IBP version.
If you haven't done it yet,
you should optimize some of
your web pages for Yahoo's search
engine algorithm. Although Google
delivers the majority of web
traffic, it is not a good idea
to rely on a single source of
traffic.
Use IBP's Top 10 Optimizer
to optimize
your web pages for both Google
and Yahoo so that your web
site gets as many targeted visitors
as possible.
We'll continue
with our article series on how
to work around Google spam filters
next week.
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