You are here:

Get rid of those directory snippets using NOODP & NOYDIR

4.50 out of 5 based on 36 ratings. 8 user reviews.

When one of your web site’s pages shows up in a list of results on a search engine, what do people see? Often the contents of the description tag of your pages are displayed in the search results.

At other times the search engines will display portions of your page’s content which contain words used in the search query. This helps people to see if your page is relevant to their search request.

Sometimes, if you are listed in DMOZ (ODP), the search engines will display snippets of text about your site taken from them instead of your description meta tag. You can force the search engine to ignore the ODP information by including a robots meta tag like this: <meta name="robots" content="noodp" />.

Which Search Engines Support NOODP?

The "NOODP" robots meta tag is fully supported by Google, Yahoo!, and MSN.

If the search engine (in this case, Yahoo!) displays information about your site taken from the Yahoo! Directory instead of your description meta tag, you can force it to ignore the directory information by including a robots meta tag like this: <meta name="robots" content="noydir" />.

It should also be perfectly reasonable to specify instructions for each individual crawling robot, such as indicated below.

  • If you only have the problem with Google, you can use this: <meta name="googlebot" content="noodp" />.
  • If you only have the problem with Yahoo!, you can use this: <meta name="slurp" content="noydir" />.
  • If you only have the problem with MSN, you can use this: <meta name="msnbot" content="noodp" />.

One of the most succinct methods is to use a single robots meta tag with multiple attributes separated by commas like this: <meta name="robots" content="noodp,noydir" />.

Which Search Engines Support NOYDIR?

Currently, only Yahoo!’s spider, Slurp, uses the Yahoo! Directory.

If the search engine (in this case, Yahoo!) displays information about your site taken from the Yahoo! Directory instead of your description meta tag, you can force it to ignore the directory information by including a robots meta tag like this: <meta name="robots" content="noydir" />.

Be aware that, once you add any of the above meta tags to your pages, it may take some time for changes to your snippets to appear.

It is hoped that these examples illustrate several of the methods at your disposal that will help you to tailor the way search engines index a given web page.

For further reading:

About this SEO tutorial

This tutorial was written by , Forensic SEO & Social Semantic Web Consultant at SEO Workers and was published April 06, 2007.

Copyright reserved. Not to be reproduced.

Comments & Ratings

Using NOODP & NOYDIR Search Scientist 5 stars 2012-01-23 08:30:56 Hi,

Thanks for this. I'm curious if you've seen any effect other than perhaps an increase in CTR. Have you noticed any ranking changes that you believe to be the effect of showing only manual descriptions?

Using NOODP & NOYDIR BlogTipss 5 stars 2010-10-28 03:45:51 I just want to ask can I use all 3 crawling meta robots google, yahoo and msn? or what is best or recomended meta tags for page indexing?

Using NOODP & NOYDIR Home Business Leads 4 stars 2010-08-17 12:18:43 By using this information and changing my meta tags actually booted me up 2 pages for my main keyword. Real good info here.

More comments

Using NOODP & NOYDIR Peter Toi 4 stars 2010-08-01 18:45:27 Thanks for the info! Presumably I would use NOODP and NOYDIR so I maintain full control over the description that appears in search results.

Question: Are there any benefits to allowing information from Yahoo Directory or DMOZ show up instead?

Cheers,
Peter

Using NOODP & NOYDIR Whitney Segura 5 stars 2010-07-07 19:13:44 I have honestly never seen anyone talk about this on the web before, and I have been through some articles and tutorials in my day. This is definately on my top list of SEO tutorials ever.

Using NOODP & NOYDIR KFunC 5 stars 2010-06-14 03:12:40 Perfect! but, can I make my robot meta tag like this? meta content=index,follow,noodp,noydir? I saw your page source, only have noodp,noydir.

Using NOODP & NOYDIR Steve 4 stars 2010-06-05 07:32:41 Good information on the new uses of meta tags. While some people say they are of only limited use anymore is it alway nice to find new ways to use them.

Thnaks for the info.

Great Site!

Using NOODP & NOYDIR Amgad 4 stars 2010-05-08 22:45:35 Thank you that was very helpful. I didn't know DMOZ is so important that they made a meta tag for it. In my humble opinion, I think it shouldn't be, because of the the way they approve the links submitted to them.

Collapse comments

Attention Comment Spammers!

  • Google says that spamming other sites can lower your site rankings;
  • Signature links under comments are not accepted;
  • Highly relevant links in the body such as the web site or blog URL are allowed, but only upon our approval;
  • You can expect that your comment may be deleted if you are attempting to get a backlink link rather than adding real value to the conversation;
  • SEO or Link Builders, if we catch you commenting but linking to a client's site, your online reputation, your firm's and that of your client are being put at severe risk;
  • Link to a page or a blog that can be identified as being about you, so our readers can gain additional perspective on your point of view and where necessary sufficient disclosure.
Comment & Rate