Forum Moderators: open
Ditto on the Yahoo directory....
Please, Tim... a NOYAHOO tag. ;)
If that tag appears, do not use either the ODP or the Yahoo directory listing.
Otherwise, we will be overrun in a few years with unique META tags.
Brian M
[edited by: Brian_M at 9:16 pm (utc) on Oct. 25, 2006]
What do you think is the right approach a different tag or should the NOODP tag apply to both YDIR and ODP?
Tim - I'd thought when I first saw the NOODP tag that what we actually needed was a NODIR tag. Since you're raising the question of choice here, perhaps we need a NODIR tag with content attribute values that would then let us opt out of specific directories... NOYAHOO or NYD, NOODP, or perhaps ALL. It could even be NOYAHOO! if the exclamation mark is allowed in meta tag syntax. ;)
Might be too late for this now, but if you can see a way of making this work, I think it would be ideal.
In the long run, this sort of thing is where I feel the engines should be talking to each other (as I know you do) and trying to agree on standards before making announcements.
I have a client, eg, who, when he started on the web was a local widgets dealer with a local Yahoo listing. Now he's a prominent brand worldwide, and I can't help but think that the local Yahoo listing in the serps is no longer helping him for customers who find him by search...
Category: Iowa > Podunk > Widget Dealers
I think he'd still like to keep his local listing for his local customers who use the directory, but this too is something to consider an opt-out choice on.
I will say that if Yahoo implements removing even just the title and description from the SERPS, I'll be recommending Yahoo listings to many more clients than I do now.
Thanks!
<name name="slurp" content="NOODP">
<name name="slurp" content="NOYAHOO">
<name name="slurp" content="NOODP,NOYAHOO">
It'd also be nice that when this is implemented it would be clear that/if something like:
<meta name="robots" content="noodp,noydir">
or even
<meta name="robots" content="noodp,noydir,nocache">
would be allowed.
I've seen a lot of people wondering if the tags have to be separate, or if they can be all neatly tucked in together.
<meta name="robots" content="index,follow,nocache,altmeta">
<meta name="altmeta" content="ODP,YDIR,BOTW">
This would grant permission to use alternate meta-data provided by ODP, Yahoo!, and BOTW -- at the search provider's discretion, of course.
---
<meta name="robots" content="altmeta">
<meta name="altmeta" content="ODP,YDIR,noBOTW">
This would exclude BOTW meta-data from being used in search results titles/descriptions.
---
Then, either
<meta name="robots" content="noaltmeta">
or
<meta name="robots" content="noODP">
could be interpreted as equivalent, getting us out of the backwards-compatibility box. If noaltmeta or noodp is found, then any subsequent <meta name="altmeta" ...> tag should be ignored.
Who knows who the search providers of the 22nd century will be? I subscribe to the philosophy that says that cool URLs don't change and that Web resources should have a long life. A granular approach as described above would allow for search providers rising and falling, while leaving Webmasters the option of fine control on frequently-maintained sites, or rough all-or-nothing control on pages that may never be updated again. At the same time, the preference-ordered list could be taken as a preference guide by search providers, without necessarily forcing them to use another provider's directory (with all the attendant contractural ties that might imply).
Just a thought...
Jim
Since the solution addresses an obvious / common issue, why not put the energy / resources into making it a standard?
Maybe we should have congress (appropriately approved by special committee before going to the full legislative process, of course!) come up with a solution? Would love to see the funding / riders on that bill!
IE.. industry standards are better than going it alone or having it dictated!
How about sticking this stuff in robots.txt files, with ALTERNATE web tags, so our pages don't end up 3 miles long full of attributes and 100 bytes of actual content?
How hard would it be to do something civilized like:
User-agent: Slurp
Directive: NOODP
Directive: NOYDIR
Directive: NOARCHIVE
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /webstat/
Sure would be nice opposed to mucking up every single webpage.
Put more control over spiders back in robots.txt where it belongs and stop forcing us to clutter our pages site wide with the same silly tags unless we WANT that level of granular control.
Jim
Yahoo should NEVER use third party titles or descriptions for a website, ever, unless a webmaster added a tag permitting it.
The arrogance of the engines on this is very offensive. Don't tag my website with rogue titles or descriptions, period. (Yahoo is less bad than Google or MSN here since Yahoo Directory titles are second-party not third-party... if the engine wants to title a page whatever it wants, then it takes responsibility. Using a thrird party title like the ODP or anybody else is just sleazy hijacking behavior and the engines should be ashamed for doing it.)
Yahoo should NEVER use third party titles or descriptions for a website, ever, unless a webmaster added a tag permitting it.
I completely agree and they should never CACHE your pages unless you opt-in to permit archiving but we're dealing with an entitlement mentality that seems to dictate imminent domain over your content without asking permission.
First off its great that Yahoo will introduce this - Well done Yahoo!
I vote for just keeping it nice and simple in the robots.txt file with a NOYDIR tag.
Slurp bot reads the robots.txt file and this nips it in the bud. It needs to be seperate to the ODP tag, after all the ODP might not be around for much longer but Yahoo will be. Also, we are interested in the position of Yahoo here and as i posted above at least Yahoo are going to do something about this issue and give webmasters the option.
I cant see there being that many sites around that cant add a robot.txt file to their pages.
Do we have any idea how long before they make a final decision on this and roll this improvement out?
I'll definitely be adding this when it happens, but also request it be seperate from ODP one way or another.
I have one question :
Introducing No Yahoo Directory Tag will improve the SERP? Or it is just for user purpose?
The SEs should look for other solutions, not for patchworking!
It was a mistake for Google to introduce the NOODP, and it'll be a mistake for Yahoo to follow. It really won't help.
Nilhan
[edited by: Spannerworks at 9:54 pm (utc) on Oct. 29, 2006]
