Blogger <$BlogMetaData$> tag includes noindex meta tag!
I noticed today that blog.seoptimise.com has been removed from the Google index. The blogs web design was updated earlier in the week and by looking into the source code I found that this was being caused by the Blogger tag <$BlogMetaData$> which produced the sites meta tags including this line of code:
<meta name=“ROBOTS” content=“NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW” />
Luckily I managed to spot this fairly quickly and hard-coded the generated code instead (without the noindex, nofollow meta tag obviously) so hopefully Google will notice this within the next couple of days. The <$BlogMetaData$> meta tag is used by most Blogger templates and I’m sure it doesn’t normally do this but it’s definitely worth looking out for. Hardcoding this also has the advantage that you can replace the RSS auto discovery tags with your own FeedBurner URL instead of the default blogger XML files.
February 14th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Hi,
Like the new layout – Solemnity Two by the look of it.
Do you use blogger to blog to a custom domain? If so, how easy is it to use this new template within blogger? Is it a simple copy and paste job??
Cheers
John.
February 15th, 2007 at 1:17 am
Hi John,
It basically involves using your own design and inserting the Blogger tags in the right places.
Here’s some info about that the blogger tags mean which was quite helpful.
February 18th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
I discovered the same thing, I deleted the BlogMetaData too, but i’m still not in the google index. How much time does that take?
February 18th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
It took 2-3 days for my blog to be re-indexed, but it could take a couple of weeks if your site isn’t normally indexed frequently.
February 20th, 2007 at 12:07 am
Did the same NO-INDEX thing to my blog and it took me a day to figure out because it was the last thing I checked. Kind of like coming home and finding the house on fire, you don’t go immediately to asking your spouse, “Honey, did you start a campfire in the living room and add an accelerant?”
I don’t like the business with the FTP form insisting on remembering the password either. And, they had dropped the link back to my website from the Blogger User Profile which now comes up first for a search on my name. Oh, and it republishes your entire blog by default when you change the password, so if you’ve hand edited pages, it all gets lost. All in all, the wonderful new Blogger has cost me 20 or 25 hours of fire fighting so far.
February 20th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
This happened to me too, on two blogs. But for one of my blogs, the nofollow/noindex was hanging out near the widget code.
February 20th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Ack, I had the same thing! I stopped ranking for my name a little while ago, and this finally explained it.
February 21st, 2007 at 8:05 pm
How do I find out if the noindex no follow line is included in the < $BlogMetaData$> element of my blog? I have the new blogger, so I reverted it to the old template, I saw the < $BlogMetaData$> element, but I don’t know how to check for the no index no follow line, I would appreciate any help, by the way thanks for the add at mybloglog.
February 21st, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Good Catch! A few of our blogs have been having issues since the start of February.
February 23rd, 2007 at 1:15 am
Just chatted with the Blogger team, and looks like things should be working normally now. :)
February 25th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
No Adam, i’ve just migrate 3 blogs from old to new platform… and, after the migration, in the HTML code i see the terrible meta tag… with NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW :’-(
Please, help us… i think it’s a terrible bug for blogger/blogspot…
February 25th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
P.S.: uhm… the solution is here? http://groups.google.com/group/blogger-help-troubleshoot/browse_frm/thread/16bb4ffacee6f397/?hl=en# (read reply #9)…
November 6th, 2007 at 12:17 am
Hi, I just notices this problem to.. how do I fix this? I’m new thanks
May 17th, 2008 at 6:30 am
Apparently you get the NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW tag if your template uses the default and you have set “Add your blog to our listings?” to “No”.