Editing Meta element (section)

===The <code>robots</code> attribute===
The <code>robots</code> attribute, supported by several major search engines,<ref>Vanessa Fox, [http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/03/using-robots-meta-tag.html Using the robots meta tag], Official Google Webmaster Central Blog, 3/05/2007</ref>{{Failed verification|date=January 2010}} controls whether search engine spiders are allowed to [[search engine indexing|index]] a page, or not, and whether they should follow links from a page, or not. The attribute can contain one or more comma-separate values. The <code>noindex</code> value prevents a page from being indexed, and <code>nofollow</code> prevents links from being [[Web crawler|crawled]]. Other values recognized by one or more search engines can influence how the engine indexes pages, and how those pages appear on the search results.  These include <code>noarchive</code>, which instructs a search engine not to store an archived copy of the page, and <code>nosnippet</code>, which asks that the search engine not include a snippet from the page along with the page's listing in search results.<ref>Danny Sullivan (March 5, 2007),[http://searchengineland.com/070305-204850.php Meta Robots Tag 101: Blocking Spiders, Cached Pages & More] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080927023737/http://searchengineland.com/070305-204850.php |date=2008-09-27 }}, ''SearchEngineLand.com'', retrieved June 3, 2007</ref>

Meta tags are one of the best options for preventing search engines from indexing content of a website.<ref>[https://developers.google.com/webmasters/control-crawl-index/docs/faq#h17 If I block Google from crawling a page using a robots.txt disallow directive, will it disappear from search results?], ''developers.google.com'', retrieved July 26, 2013</ref>

====Additional attributes for search engines====

=====NOODP=====
The search engines [[Google]], [[Yahoo!]] and [[Live Search|MSN]] used in some cases the title and abstract of the [[DMOZ]] (aka Open Directory Project) listing of a website for the title and/or description (also called snippet or abstract) in the [[search engine results page]]s (SERP). To give [[webmaster]]s the option to specify that the Open Directory Project content should not be used for listings of their website, Microsoft introduced in May 2006 the new "<code>NOODP</code>" value for the "<code>robots</code>" element of the meta tags.<ref>Betsy Aoki (May 22, 2006), [http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch/archive/2006/05/22/603917.aspx Opting Out of Open Directory Listings for Webmasters], ''Live Search Blog'', retrieved June 3, 2007</ref> Google followed in July 2006<ref>Vanessa Fox (July 13, 2006), [http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/07/more-control-over-page-snippets.html More control over page snippets], ''Inside Google Sitemaps'', retrieved June 3, 2007</ref> and Yahoo! in October 2006.<ref>Yahoo! Search (October 24, 2006), [http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000368.html Yahoo! Search Weather Update and Support for 'NOODP'], ''Yahoo! Search Blog'', retrieved June 3, 2007</ref>

By 2017, Google reported stopping the use of [[DMOZ]], following its closure, hence, NOODP directive is ignored since.<ref>[https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2017/06/better-snippets-for-your-users Better Snippets for your Users]</ref>

The syntax is the same for all search engines who support the tag.
<syntaxhighlight lang="html">
<meta name="robots" content="noodp" >
</syntaxhighlight>

Webmasters can decide if they want to disallow the use of their ODP listing on a per search engine basis

Google:
<syntaxhighlight lang="html"><meta name="googlebot" content="noodp" ></syntaxhighlight>

Yahoo!
<syntaxhighlight lang="html">
<meta name="Slurp" content="noodp" ></syntaxhighlight>

MSN and Live Search (via [[bingbot]], previously [[msnbot]]): <syntaxhighlight lang="html">
<meta name="bingbot" content="noodp" ></syntaxhighlight>

=====NOYDIR=====
Yahoo! puts content from their own Yahoo! directory next to the ODP listing. In 2007 they introduced a meta tag that lets web designers opt-out of this.<ref>Yahoo! Search (February 28, 2007), [http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000418.html Yahoo! Search Support for 'NOYDIR' Meta Tags and Weather Update] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081106103321/http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000418.html |date=2008-11-06 }}, ''Yahoo! Search Blog'', retrieved June 3, 2007</ref>

Adding the <code>NOYDIR</code> tag to a page will prevent Yahoo! from displaying [[Yahoo! Directory]] titles and abstracts.

<syntaxhighlight lang="html">
<meta name="robots" content="noydir" >
<meta name="Slurp" content="noydir" >
</syntaxhighlight>