Google Ignores Unrecognized Attributes When Parsing HTML

Aug 18, 2017 - 7:48 am 0 by

Google Code

What happens when you have invalid code, or attributes that mean nothing, or you have a typo in your attributes in your code? How does Google handle it? Well, Google is pretty good at crawling the whole web and the whole web often has a lot of bad code, invalid markup, typos and incorrect syntax. Google learned to crawl the imperfect web and render it properly to searchers.

John Mueller said that when you use unrecognized attributes, Google is generally able to just ignore it when they parse the HTML.

He said this on Twitter:

So if you want to put in your attributes rel="this link rocks so much" or meta="rank this page number one" - Google will just ignore it.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Google Search Volatility

More Details

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Google Ads

Google Ads Will Soon Allow Some Final URLs To Redirect To A Different Domain

Jun 24, 2026 - 7:51 am
Google Ads

Google Local Services Ads Broad Search Details Added To Help Doc

Jun 24, 2026 - 7:41 am
Google

Google Merchant Center: How To Remove Found By Google Products

Jun 24, 2026 - 7:31 am
Google Ads

Google Ads: Unique Search Categories With Clicks, Conversions & Impressions

Jun 24, 2026 - 7:21 am
Google Ads

Google Ads Shop Diagnostics: Shop Sales Eligibility

Jun 24, 2026 - 7:11 am
Google AdSense

Google AdSense Multiplex Ads Changes Ad Request Reporting

Jun 24, 2026 - 7:05 am
 
Previous Story: Google: Google Search Console Data Delayed & Slower Than Normal