Best Practices for Setting Up Meta Robots Tags & Robots.Txt

While most SEO practices ensure both user satisfaction and higher ranks on the SERPs, Meta Robot tags and Robots.txt are only for the search engines. These are framed explicitly for the crawlers and have no relation with the content of that page or website. These stop search engine bots from crawling pages that can essentially cause a drop in the SERP ranking. While the former can instruct a crawler about a page, the latter can instruct for an entire site.

Though this seems like a black hat SEO practice, it is something Google itself suggests in order to reduce the pressure on a particular site. For that, it has assigned a specific crawl budget to every website, which it cannot exceed. It is up to the owner which websites they want Google to crawl and which not to. If used judiciously with proper planning, these two features can substantially enhance the ranking of a website.

HOW TO OPTIMIZE META ROBOT TAGS?

By using this tag, you can instruct crawlers not to crawl low-quality pages and direct them towards the high-quality pages instead. The bots will then assess the entire website based on those pages, resulting in a better ranking.

The best SEO practices regarding Meta Robot tags are:

• One should use the meta robot tag parameter "noindex,follow” in most case to restrict crawling instead of robots.txt file disallows.
  
  
• Meticulously manage site map for better crawling and indexation.
  
  
• Never use X-robots and Meta Robots on the same page as it would make one of them redundant.
  
  
• Do not use both Meta Robot tag and Robots.txt on the same pages if they are indexed. First, apply Meta Robots and then wait for Google to de-index them and then save crawl budget by blocking them with Robots.txt.
  
  
• While no-follow is a directive that a webmaster should mention, the opposite is a default. Thus, do not waste time and effort in indexing them.
  
  

These are some pointers to keep in mind while using this tag. Applying them will ensure better chances of ranking high and gain improved traffic through selective crawling.

WHAT ARE THE BEST SEO PRACTICES TO SET UP ROBOTS.TXT?

Though this does not let one select an individual page, with its help, one can block entire sites, and this has its own benefits. Moreover, Google provides detailed directives on how to create a Robots.txt and how to use that.

Some of the best SEO practices to set up this tag are as follows:

• Never name the file anything other than “robots.txt” as it is case-sensitive.
  
  
• Always create a proper list of areas that should not get crawled before, and never use an already existing file.
  
  
• The ideal pages to hide using robots.txt are thank you pages, admin pages, pagination pages, shopping cart, query parameter pages, and account or profile pages.
  
  
• Also, use it to block pages that are neither indexed nor linked from anywhere.
  
  
• There should be a dedicated and customized file assigned to each sub-domain belonging to the root domain.
  
  

Besides these, one should also triple-check these files before making them live, ensuring only intended pages were blocked. There is an array of other factors that one can implement to better this file, but the above-mentioned pointers are ideal for starters. One can either use a robots.txt generator or opt for professional assistance instead for better results.

Both Meta Robot tags and Robots.txt are inter-related and optimum results can only be achieved when both are used simultaneously. Always ensure that these are placed with clear intentions, or else, these can also hinder potential ranking pages from being crawled.