Robots META tag is used to tell a Web Robot whether a Web page can be indexed and whether it can trace links on its page. The markup element has become more and more important. Moreover, robot does not have the control permission on the robots.txt file under the server's top-level Directory. Some search engines currently fully follow the Robots Meta Tag, such as Inktomi. robots Meta Tag format: The Robots META tag is stored in The header area (HEAD area) of The background HTML source code.
Here is an example:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<Meta name = "ROBOTS" CONTENT = "NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW">
<Meta name = "DESCRIPTION" CONTENT = "this page...">
<TITLE>... </TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
...
Robot Meta Tag options:
In a Robots Meta Tag, four commands can be used: INDEX, NOINDEX, FOLLOW, and NOFOLLOW, separated. Where:
INDEX command: indicates that the Robot can INDEX this page;
FOLLOW command: indicates that the Robot can track links on this page;
NOINDEX command: indicates that the Robot index on this page is rejected, but the link on this page can be tracked;
NOFOLLOW command: indicates that the Robot is denied from tracking the link on this page, but can index this page.
Instance:
<Meta name = "ROBOTS" CONTENT = "INDEX, FOLLOW">
<Meta name = "ROBOTS" CONTENT = "NOINDEX, FOLLOW">
<Meta name = "ROBOTS" CONTENT = "INDEX, NOFOLLOW">
<Meta name = "ROBOTS" CONTENT = "NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW">
As mentioned in some search engine articles about Robots Meta tags, the predefined default settings are INDEX and FOLLOW. However, this is not the case for Inktomi. The default values of Inktomi are INDEX and NOFOLLOW.
There are also two global commands: ALL and NONE.
ALL = INDEX, FOLLOW: indicates that the current page can be indexed and the link to this page can be tracked;
NONE = NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW: indicates that the current page cannot be indexed and the link to this page cannot be tracked.