There are certain web pages in Blogger blog that you should restrict from being index or followed by search engines. For example, archive and search label pages of Blogger blog can create duplicate content issues, so you should add a noindex robots meta tag in such webpages.
However, you can allow search label pages to be followed by search engines crawlers so that they can create internal backlinks for your posts.
This tutorial will guide you how to add necessary robots meta tags in Blogger and optimize your blog for search engines. Let’s first discuss about various robots meta tags in detail.
Table of Contents
Some basic robots meta tags
The basic syntax of a robots meta tag looks like this: <meta content=’tag-name-here’ name=’robots’/>
The robots tag name is added in the content section. Here are some of the robots tags that we are going to add in Blogger blog for SEO –
- Noindex – This tag prevents web pages from being index and cached by the search engines.
- Nofollow – This tag tells search engines not to follow the links on the webpage.
- Follow – You can add this tag if you want to follow the links on the webpage.
- Noarchive – This tag tells the search engines not to cache the webpage and show “Cached” link in the search results.
- None – This tag is equivalent to noindex, nofollow both.
How to add robots meta tags in Blogger
There are two ways you can add robots meta tags in your Blogger blog. First one is by adding robots meta tags in the Blogger template manually.
We will recommend you to use this method as it will directly add the robots meta tags in the source code of the webpage. Follow this step-by-step guide –
- First, login to your Blogger Dashboard and go to the Theme section.
- Click “Edit HTML” button.
- Now click anywhere in the template editor and press CTRL+F to open the search box.
- Search <head> tag and paste the following code just below it:
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "index"'> <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "archive"'> <meta content='noindex,noarchive' name='robots'/> </b:if> <b:else/> <b:if cond='data:blog.url != data:blog.homepageUrl'> <meta content='noindex,follow' name='robots'/> </b:if> </b:if>
- Finally, tap the “Save theme” button to save the changes. That’s it.
This code uses Blogger conditional tags to display robots meta tags on certain web pages of your Blogger blog such as archive page (noindex, nofollow), and search label page (noindex, follow).
Note: It may take some time for search engines to reflect the changes in your blog depending on how often your web pages are crawled.
Add robots meta tags using Blogger settings
Blogger also provides an option in settings to help you manage robots meta tags on your blog. Here’s a step-by-step guide –
- Login to your Blogger Dashboard and go to Settings > Search Preferences.
- Under Crawlers and indexing section, click the edit link next to the Custom robots header tags option.
- Click Yes button.
- Now select noindex and nofollow under Archive and Search pages. (See below picture) Make sure that no robots meta tag is selected for the home page, blog posts and pages.
- Finally, tap the “Save changes” button.
Using this Blogger search preference settings, we have added nofollow and noindex robots meta tags only in the Archive and Search pages of your blog.
So that’s how you can add custom robots meta tags in Blogger and optimize your blog for search engines (SEO). If you want to ask something about this tutorial or facing any problem, let us know in the comment section below.
Vivek ChaudharyVerified AuthorThis author is verified as a trusted expert and senior writer. A formal process has been completed to confirm their identity and qualifications.
