Definition: Meta robots tag

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The meta robots tag is an HTML attribute that provides information to search engine bots (also known as “robots” or “crawlers”) about how they should treat the content of a web page. The tag is added to the HTML code of a page and can specify various instructions, such as whether the page should be indexed, whether links on the page should be followed, or whether certain parts of the page should be ignored.

The meta robots tag supports several values, including “index” (to allow the page to be indexed), “noindex” (to prevent the page from being indexed), “follow” (to allow links on the page to be followed), and “nofollow” (to prevent links on the page from being followed). By using the meta robots tag, webmasters can control how their pages are treated by search engines, which can affect the visibility and ranking of the pages in search results.

It’s important to note that the meta robots tag is just one of many factors that search engines use to determine the relevance and ranking of web pages, and it may not always be respected or obeyed by all search engines. Therefore, it should be used in conjunction with other SEO techniques and best practices to optimize a website’s visibility and ranking in search results.

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