GeekZilla

Google Applicance - googleoff / googleon Tags

I came across these recently... thought I'd share

The googleoff/googleon tags disable the indexing of a part of a web page. The result is that those pages do not appear in search results when users search for the tagged word or phrase. For example, some developers use googleoff/googleon tags to comment out a navigation bar in static HTML pages.

You can use googleon/off to tell the Google Search Appliance to ignore portions of a page. Insert <!--googleoff: index--> at the point you want the Google Search Appliance to stop indexing, then insert <!--googleon: index--> where you want it to resume indexing the page.

You can also use the tags to avoid indexing anchor links leading to another web page.

You can use either of the following to prevent the words "chocolate pudding" from appearing in the snippets.

<!--googleoff: snippet--> chocolate pudding <!--googleon: snippet-->

<!--googleoff: all--> chocolate pudding <!--googleon: all-->

The googleon/googleoff tags are index, anchor snippet, all. Here's how they are used.

index tag

Words surrounded by the googleon/off tags will not be indexed as occurring on the current page.

A page containing:

fish <!--googleoff: index--> shark <!--googleon: index--> mackerel

has the terms "fish" & "mackerel" indexed for that page, but will not index "shark" for the page. It's possible, however, that the page could be a search result for the search term "shark", since "shark" may occur elsewhere on the page, or in anchortext for links to the page.

anchor tag

"Anchortext" surrounded by the googleon/off tags and occurring in links to other pages will not be indexed as words associated with the other linked-to pages. A page containing:

<!--googleoff: anchor--> <A href=linked_to_page.html> shark </A> <!--googleon: anchor-->

will not cause the word "shark" to be associated with the page "linked_to_page.html". Otherwise, this hyperlink could cause the page "linked_to_page.html" to be a search result for the search term "shark".

snippet tag

The text surrounded by googleon/off tags will not be used to create snippets for search results.

<!--googleoff: snippet--> Come to the fair! <!--googleon: snippet-->

all tag

Turns on all of the attributes: index, anchor, and snippet.

<!--googleoff: all--> Come to the fair! <!--googleon: all>

The text surrounded by googleon/off tags will not be indexed, followed to another linked-to page, or used for a snippet.

thanks to Google for this content

Author Paul Hayman

Paul is the COO of kwiboo ltd and has more than 20 years IT consultancy experience. He has consulted for a number of blue chip companies and has been exposed to the folowing sectors: Utilities, Telecommunications, Insurance, Media, Investment Banking, Leisure, Legal, CRM, Pharmaceuticals, Interactive Gaming, Mobile Communications, Online Services.

Paul is the COO and co-founder of kwiboo (http://www.kwiboo.com/) and is also the creator of GeekZilla.

Comments

Add Comment

Latest Articles