NOODP tag Question.

Noodp

[2kegx]

A lot of use the following meta tag to tell SE bots not to use DMOZ's (often screwed up) meta description):

META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP" (stops MSN, Google and Yahoo from using ODP directory)

Question:

Will this also hurt your serp rankings since Google, for example, can't show what meta description you put on DMOZ ...or, will you still be "credited", if you will, for the DMOZ listing?

Thanks for your help.

[phranque]

technically speaking, anything that can change the click-through from the SERP to your site, such as changing the snippet, can have an effect on ranking.

i doubt that google would deliberately provide documentation of techniques intended to hurt your ranking such as how to "Prevent search engines from displaying DMOZ data in search results for your site":
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35624#2

i think what you are really asking is if meta robots NOODP is a form of link disavowal.
google might be vague in their answers but they are rarely shy about indicating that there is risk in certain techniques and i see no sign of that with NOODP.

[2kegx]

Thanks for your time in response Phranque. I appreciate your comment re "disavowal", etc. I'm not sure I 100% agree with it. What I'm wondering is that if you choose to have your own meta description (should be expected) show in Google, instead of DMOZ's often mashed-up description, then aren't you also, essentially, telling Google to ignore the fact that you have a DMOZ listing altogether... or, if not, isn't Google likely to treat your DMOZ listing, "per your own instructions", as if it doesn't exist ...and thus knock you down a little? Providing customers with an NOODP solution (eg the page you provided from Google) doesn't necessarily mean they don't do that (in my mind). Then again, it's widely acknowledged that they prefer a site that's already been recognized by DMOZ, and you're just telling them to ignore the meta description part, not the entire DMOZ listing. Thanks for your contribution.