Meta Tag Force Page Refresh - Good or Bad?
-
I had recently come across a meta tag that could cause a auto refresh on a users browser when implemented. I have been using it for a redesign and was curious if there could be any negative effects for using it, here is the code:
All input is appreciated.
Ciao,
Todd Richard
-
I don't believe that tag causes an auto-refresh. Rather, it is used in combination with an auto-refresh to make sure that nothing is cached in the user's browser, which ensures that the entire page updated during the refresh.
If I recall correctly, sending "no-cache" info in the http header is a better practice that using a meta tag. To quote from http://www.mnot.net/cache_docs/#META:
"Meta tags are easy to use, but aren’t very effective. That’s because they’re only honored by a few browser caches, not proxy caches (which almost never read the HTML in the document). While it may be tempting to put a Pragma: no-cache meta tag into a Web page, it won’t necessarily cause it to be kept fresh."
I couldn't say whether this would affect your page in terms of SEO, but I also don't think there's a reason to use the pragma tag anymore, so in my opinion, it's moot.
-
Hi Todd,
Using the Pragma no-cache tag means that no cached content from that page will be used when a user next accesses the page; the request will go back to the origin server instead. It's useful when you have a frequently-updated page that you don't want users to end up seeing older versions of. It's generally considered to be a bit of an outdated tag - you may want to explore using your HTTP headers to expire content instead - but won't hurt you with the search engines (or prevent the Cached version of your page from showing up in the SERPs). Hope that helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Too many SEO changes needed on a page. Create a new page?
I've been doing some research on a keyword with Page Optimization. I'm finding there's a lot of changes suggested. I'm wondering that because of the amount of changes required is it better to create a new page entirely from scratch that has all the suggestions implemented OR change the current page? Thanks, Chris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chris29181 -
Why Would My Page Have a Higher PA and DA, Links & On-Page Grade & Still Not Rank?
The Search Term is "Alcohol Ink" and our client has a better page authority, domain authority, links to the page, and on-page grade than those in the SERP for spaces 5-10 and we're not even ranked in the top 51+ according to Moz's tracker. The only difference I can see is that our URL doesn't use the exact text like some of the 5-10 do. However, regardless of this, our on-page grade is significantly higher than the rest of them. The one thing I found was that there were two links to the page (that we never asked for) that had a spam score in the low 20's and another in the low 30's. Does anyone have any recommendations on how to maybe get around this? Certainly, a content campaign and linking campaign around this could also help but I'm kind of scratching my head. The client is reputable, with a solid domain age and well recognized in the space so it's not like it's a noob trying to get in out of nowhere.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Omnisye0 -
301 from old site to new one , Should I point to home page or sub category page ?
Hey Seo Experts, I have a small website ranking for few terms like cabinets sale, buy etc . However what i have now decided is to launch a New website with more different products like living room furniture, wardrobes etc . Out of all these categories on new website Cabinets is one of the SubCategory . Now I do not want to have 2 websites . So wanted to 301 from small cabinets website to newly created website. Some of the doubts I have at the moment is ? 1 Should I REDIRECT 301 to sub category (i,e cabinets) which is purely related to Cabinets or Do a Redirect to HOME PAGE . As I also need more Authority to home page as well , as this is relatively new website ? 2 Second question related to this. If you have multiple sub domains does it divide the total authority & TF.Or it is just Ok to have multiple Sub domains if needed ? Any advice appreciated !! Thanks .
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | aus00070 -
Some Tools Not Recognizing Meta Tags
I am analyzing a site which has several thousands of pages, checking the headers, meta tags, and other on page factors. I noticed that the spider tool on SEO Book (http://tools.seobook.com/general/spider-test) does not seem to recognize the meta tags for various pages. However, using other tools including Moz, it seems the meta tags are being recognized. I wouldn't be as concerned with why a tool is not picking up the tags. But, the site suffered a large traffic loss and we're still trying to figure out what remaining issues need to be addressed. Also, many of those pages once ranked in Google and now cannot be found unless you do a site:// search. Is it possible that there is something blocking where various tools or crawlers can easily read them, but other tools cannot. This would seem very strange to me, but the above is what I've witnessed recently. Your suggestions and feedback are appreciated, especially as this site continues to battle Panda.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ABK7170 -
Should my back links go to home page or internal pages
Right now we rank on page 2 for many KWs, so should i now focus my attention on getting links to my home page to build domain authority or continue to direct links to the internal pages for specific KWs? I am about to write some articles for several good ranking sites and want to know whether to link my company name (same as domain name) or KW to the home page or use individual KWs to the internal pages - I am only allowed one link per article to my site. Thanks Ash
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AshShep10 -
Does Google still don't index Hashtag Links ? No chance to get a Search Result that leads directly to a section of a page? or to one of numeras Hashtag Pages in a single HTML page?
Does Google still don't index Hashtag Links ? No chance to get a Search Result that leads directly to a section of a page? or to one of numeras Hashtag Pages in a single HTML page? If I have 4 or 5 different hashtag link section pages , consolidated into one HTML Page, no chance to get one of the Hashtag Pages to appear as a search result? like, if under one Single Page Travel Guide I have two essential sections: #Attractions #Visa no chance to direct search queries for Visa directly to the Hashtag Link Section of #Visa? Thanks for any help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Muhammad_Jabali0 -
Noindex a meta refresh site
I have a client's site that is a vanity URL, i.e. www.example.com, that is setup as a meta refresh to the client's flagship site: www22.example.com, however we have been seeing Google include the Vanity URL in the index, in some cases ahead of the flagship site. What we'd like to do is to de-index that vanity URL. We have included a no-index meta tag to the vanity URL, however we noticed within 24 hours, actually less, the flagship site also went away as well. When we removed the noindex, both vanity and flagship sites came back. We noticed in Google Webmaster that the flagship site's robots.txt file was corrupt and was also in need of fixing, and we are in process of fixing that - Question: Is there a way to noindex vanity URL and NOT flagship site? Was it due to meta refresh redirect that the noindex moved out the flagship as well? Was it maybe due to my conducting a google fetch and then submitting the flagship home page that the site reappeared? The robots.txt is still not corrected, so we don't believe that's tied in here. To add to the additional complexity, the client is UNABLE to employ a 301 redirect, which was what I recommended initially. Anyone have any thoughts at all, MUCH appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ACNINTERACTIVE0 -
Why is my XML sitemap ranking on the first page of google for 100s of key words versus the actual relevant page?
I still need this question answerd and I know it's something I must have changed. But google is ranking my sitemap for 100s of key terms versus the actual page. It's great to be on the first page but not my site map...... Geeeez.....
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ursalesguru0