Sunday, 28th August 2005
I would like to say big thank you to Robert for telling me about BlogSpot.com’s "No Follow" META tag that prevents the search engine spiders from visiting the links in my BlogSpot.com blogs.
I went to verify it and here’s what I see in a typical unedited default BlogSpot.com HTML Code:
As you can see the meta tag "ROBOTS" with the command "NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW" instructs search engine spiders not to follow the links and index the blog. No wonder my blog and ping efforts were useless with BlogSpot.com!
I thought of a solution to remove that meta tag by editing the default BlogSpot.com template HTML Code. Its actually very very easy do do. You just have to remove 1 line of code, save your template and republish all files.
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Check out the 1st screenshot. See the line with the code <$BlogMetaData$>? Delete that line and click on "Save Template Changes" and republish all pages of your blog.
I believe this change might help the search engine spiders follow the links on my BlogSpot.com blogs and hopefully index my web site faster. Like all things… You’ll never know if you don’t do it. I’m going to test it right away!
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On 28th August 2005 1:05 PM, Ashrufzz
said:
I’m experimenting myself with a few ‘white hat’ SEO techniques. I’m building a webpage and your information here is simply informative for me..
On 29th August 2005 1:51 PM, Tom
said:
Hi Vincent. I checked the source-code of one of my blogs, after reading your article, and confirmed the opposite thing. My HTML code does not, in fact, carry with it the notorious REL=NOFOLLOW. Here’s a clip of it:
mysterious poster
@import url(”http://www.blogger.com/css/blog_controls.css”);
@import url(”http://www.blogger.com/dyn-css/authorization.css?blogID=123456789″);
So, I may be mistaken (and if so, please set me straight with a reply to this posting), but I don’t think that I’m burdened with a REL=NOFOLLOW as was the case with your blog at blogspot.
The answer is, most likely, that it has to do with the TEMPLATE you’re using, and not so much Blogger.Com themselves. I use the default template, and it does not seem to have the tag in it. Perhaps the designers of some of the other alternative templates on Blogger thought it was important enough to put the NoFollow tag in.
Sincerely, Tom
On 29th August 2005 3:03 PM, Vincent Rich
said:
Hi Tom,
I am using one of Blogger’s pre-made templates. Specifically “Minima Created By: Douglas Bowman”.
The template did not have any meta tags in it. But it does have Blogger’s tag . is responsible for generating the “no follow” meta tag not the author.
Cheers,
Vincent
On 7th September 2005 4:02 AM, Tom said:
Hi Vincent:
I see what you’re saying…I am using the same template. The point I’m poorly trying to make is this. I have several Blogger blogs, and I’ve checked the source-code on them (not the template, but the published source code…), and none of them are displaying the “rel=nofollow” tag in the header.
…A brief update…I’ve been doing some research…Check to see if your blogs are marked as “unlisted”…here’s a quote from Blogger.Com Knowledge Base:
***
What does the ‘listing’ blog setting do?
The Add your Blog to our listings? setting determines whether or not your blog will appear on blogger.com — more specifically, for the blog list on your profile page and the Fresh Blogs list on the Dashboard.
You can find this setting on the Settings | Basic page:
Note: If your blog Template is using the BlogMetaData tag, turning this off also means that your blog won’t be crawled by search engines. (Further details are here: Will my blog appear in search engines?)
***
Vincent, I think this will fix the problem for you, and I hope this helps.
Sincerely, Tom.
On 7th September 2005 10:40 AM, Vincent Rich said:
I usually turn of the blog listings cos I don’t want people to stumble on my junk pages. The blog will still be on the internet even if its off the listings.
At the settings page is says “A Public blog appears in your Blogger Profile. If you select “No” we will not show your blog anywhere on Blogger.com, but it will still be available on the Internet.”.
After reading:
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=778&query=BlogMetaData%20&topic=0&type=f
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=56
I now know that if I turn off the listing settings, Blogger will add the no follow meta tags in my page.
Thanks Tom!
On 11th September 2005 3:55 AM, Andy Beard
said:
If you remove BlockMetaData, you have to add a full set of metadata to replace it.
Lots of that metadata is vital, especially for the whole ping process to work.
I go through the same process on every real blogger blog I create, while adding Feedburner support.
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