noindex vs nofollow?

the difference

[extremegolfer]

Hello,

What is the difference between noindex and nofollow tags? Will search engines index a page that has a nofollow tag on it?

[jdMorgan]

> What is the difference between noindex and nofollow tags?

Noindex means don't index this page, which means don't put this page in the search results.

Nofollow means don't follow the links on this page. If no other pages point to the same pages as the links on this page, this can have the same effect on those pages as a noindex on those pages. However, since anyone could deep-link to those pages, don't count on this.

> Will search engines index a page that has a nofollow tag on it?

Yes, but they won't follow the links on the page.

Jim

[rjohara]

In their unabbreviated form, the four possible robots meta elements are:

<meta name="robots" content="index,follow" />
A well-behaved bot will index the page and follow all the links on the page.

<meta name="robots" content="index,nofollow" />
A well-behaved bot will index the page but will treat it as a "dead end" and won't follow any of the links.

<meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow" />
A well-behaved bot will skip over the page, not indexing its content, but will continue on to all the other pages that this page links to.

<meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" />
A well-behaved bot will neither index the page nor follow any of its links - it will treat the page as though it doesn't exist.

[jdMorgan]

Note that the "index,follow" variant is the default behaviour, and is not needed unless you're using it as a placeholder for dynamic management of robots control on your pages, e.g. using a script to populate the "index" and "follow" variables based on a CMS. Otherwise, it's a waste of space.

Jim