Google: Meta Robots Nofollow Is A Hint Also

Sep 12, 2019 - 8:39 am 1 by

Evergreen Googlebot

Gary Illyes from Google clarified last night that if you place a nofollow in your robots meta tags, it will also follow the new rules as the nofollow link attribute. Hence, as Gary said "Meta robots nofollow is a hint now, like rel-nofollow." Although the robots won't support the new ugc and sponsored attributes.

Gary said this on Twitter:

1. There's no meta robots ugc and sponsored, it won't do anything if you add that.
2. Meta robots nofollow is a hint now, like rel-nofollow.
3. I'll update the docs tonight to say this explicitly.

John Mueller from Google clarified as well saying "The robots meta tag remains the same as before, noindex affects the page, nofollow affects the links on the page. It's just that nofollow on the links is now different. There's no ugc or sponsored for the robots meta tag."

Here are those tweets:

Here are bit more tidbits on this topic from Gary:

Forum discussion at Twitter.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Follow

Search Video Recaps

 
Google Core Update Rumbling, Manual Actions FAQs, Core Web Vitals Updates, AI, Bing, Ads & More - YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: March 18, 2024

Mar 18, 2024 - 4:00 pm
Google Updates

Google Urges Patience As The March 2024 Core Update Continues To Rollout

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:51 am
Google

Official: Google Replaces Perspective Filter With Forums Filter

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:41 am
Google Maps

Google Business Profiles Now Offers Additional Review After Appeal Is Denied

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:31 am
Google Maps

EU Searchers Complaining About Google Maps Features Changes Related To DMA

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:21 am
Google

Google Showing Fewer Sitelinks Within Search

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:11 am
Previous Story: Google Ads Extends Removal Of Accelerated Delivery By 20 More Days