Monday, 20 August 2012

Brafton: Google alerts users to sites blocking Googlebot, removing ‘robot.txt’ code could boost SEO clicks for marketers

Brafton
News Content Marketing
Google alerts users to sites blocking Googlebot, removing 'robot.txt' code could boost SEO clicks for marketers
Aug 20th 2012, 13:32

Google now informs users when a search result has been blocked from being crawled by Googlebot.

Google has a rolled out a new search feature that informs users when a site has blocked Googlebot from crawling a page or page elements since there is no rich snippets information for SERPs. Previously, Googlebot would show page descriptions based on the limited data available regarding the page, and the result typically reads awkwardly or inaccurately assesses the page's content. For marketers, the adjustment could provide more motivation to avoid blocking Googlebot on some pages to catch more SEO clicks.

On SERPs, users will now see, "A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt - learn more." The "learn more" text directs users to a page that explains why some sites opt to block Googlebot and explanations for marketers and webmasters describing the ways to block or unblock the search crawler.

The message could also serve to alert webmasters of pages on their sites that are blocked, which they may not have meant to block.

As SEO evolves and Google urges companies to make their sites as user-friendly as possible, the move prevents inaccurate descriptions from misleading users.

Rich snippets have been the subject of other recent search updates. In its Inside Search blog post about June and July quality improvements, Google reported that it has rolled out an algorithm that determines if a page is an "article" or another kind of content.

Media files:
Google-Block-SERP.png (image/png, 0 MB)
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