Meta description tag in rss xml file?
-
The SEOmoz crawl diagnostic tool is complaining that I'm missing a meta description tag from a file that is an RSS xml file. In my <channel>section I do have a <description>tag. Is this a bug in the SEOmoz tool or do I need to add another tag to satisify the warning?</description></channel>
-
You're right, I probably should block bots from crawling that xml file (yes, it duplicates what is on my blog). On the other hand, it may be a bug in SEOmoz's crawler that it's reporting a warning about a missing meta description tag in a .xml file, too. (so FYI SEOmoz, if you're listening...).
-
Damnit, the one time I don't ctrl+c before hitting submit, grrr.
Anyway, I misunderstood, I though you were pulling descriptions from a .xml file not having your feed crawled.
Do you really want your feed to be indexed? Just duplicate content isn't it?
I'd think about blocking bots from crawling it (though please seek a second opinion first).
And to answer your actual questions the RSS description is not the same as the meta description (though I'm not sure if adding it will stop readers parsing the feed).
-
Hi Barry,
Here's the URL
I don't know if .xml files are suppose to have a meta description tag, or if they use just the 'description' tag within the 'channel' block.
-
What happens when you view source? Is there a tag?
If it's their I'd imagine you're all right, if not, then you'll need to add it.
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
-
Meta no index crawler warnings
I've decided that the duplicate content issues on my site weren't worth the effort from the amount of traffic the archive pages on my WordPress site received no I decided to no-index them using Yoast. Now I have 60 meta no-index crawler warnings. Should I just ignore these? It seems I get warnings, either way, I use the site. Does anyone have advice on how to move on with this?
Moz Pro | | Libra_Photographic0 -
Is your live site supposed to have rel canonical tags?
I recently started working for a company and got them to use Moz and I have found that our secure site and our live sites are creating "duplicate content" according to the Crawl Diagnostics feature. On our secure site we have rel canonical tags pointing to our live site. I'm not super familiar with rel canonical tags, but our developer says we're doing the right thing. Would love any insight you guys may have if this is actually duplicate content or not. Thanks so much!
Moz Pro | | Chase_Cleckner0 -
How can I deal with tag page duplicate issues
The Moz crawler reported some dupliated issues. Many of them have to do with tags.
Moz Pro | | IamKovacs
Each tag has a link, and as some articles are under several tags, these come up as duplicate content. I read Dr Peter's piece on Canonical stuff, but it's not clear to me if any of these are the solution. Perhaps the solution lies somewhere else? Maybe I need to block the robots from these urls (But that seems counter-SEO-productive) Thanks
Kovacs0 -
Need help understanding search filter URL's and meta tags
Good afternoon Mozzers, One of our clients is a real estate agent and on that site there is a search field that will allow a person to search by filtered categories. Currently, the URL structure makes a new URL for each filter option and in my Moz reports I get the report that there is missing meta data. However, the page is the same the filter options are different so I am at a loss as to how to proper tag our site to optimize those URL's. Can I rel canonical the URL's or alt rel them? I have been looking for a solution for a few days now and like I said I am at a loss of how to properly resolve these warning messages, or if I should even be concerned with the warning messages from Moz (obviously I should be concerned, they are warning messages for a reason). Thank you for your assistance in advance!
Moz Pro | | Highline_Ideas0 -
Some questions on Canonical tag AND 301 redirect
Hi everyone, I'm new here - always loved SEOMoz and glad to be part of the Pro community now. I have 2 questions regarding the Canonical URL tag. Some background info: We used to run an OsCommerce store, and recently migrated to Magento. In doing so, we right away created 301 redirects of the old category pages (OsCommerce) to the new category pages (Magento) via the Magento admin. Example: www.example.com/old-widget-category.html
Moz Pro | | yacpro13
301 redicrected to
www.example.com/new-widget-category.html In Magento admin, we have enabled the Canonical tag for all product and category pages. Here's how Magento sets up the Canonical tag: The URL of interest which we want to rank is:
www.example.com/new-widget-category.html However Magento sets up the canonical tag on this page to point to:
www.example.com/old-widget-category.html When using the SEOMoz On Page Report Card, it pick this up as an error because the Canonical tag is pointing to a different URL. However, if we dig a little deeper, we see that the URL being pointed to
www.example.com/old-widget-category.html
has a 301 redirect to
www.example.com/new-widget-category.html
which is the URL we wan to rank. So because we set up a 301 redirect of the old-page to the new-page, on the new-page the canonical tag points to the old-page. Question 1)
What are you opinions on this? Do you think this method of setting up the Canonical tag is acceptable? Second question... We use pagination for category pages, so if we have 50 products in one category, we would have 5 pages of 10 products. The URL's would be: www.example.com/new-widget-category.html (which is the SAME as ?p=1)
www.example.com/new-widget-category.html?p=1
www.example.com/new-widget-category.html?p=2
www.example.com/new-widget-category.html?p=3
www.example.com/new-widget-category.html?p=4
www.example.com/new-widget-category.html?p=5 Now ALL the URLs above have the canonical tag set as:
<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/new-widget-category" /> However, the content of each page (page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) is different because different products are displayed. So far most what I read regarding the Canonical tag is that it is used for pages that have the same content but different URLs. I would hope that Google would combine the content of all 5 pages and view the result as a single URL www.example.com/new-widget-category Question 2) Is using the canonical tag appropriate in the case described above? Thanks !0 -
Crawl Diagnostics and missing meta tags on noindex blog pages
Hi Guys/Gals We do love the Crawl Diagnostics, but do find the missing meta tags ("Missing Meta Description" Tag in this case) somewhat spammy. We use the "All in One SEO Pack" for our blog and it does stick in noindex,follow (as it should) on the pages that is of no use to us. "2008/04/page/2/" and the likes. Maybe I'm wrong but should the Diagnostics tool not respect the noindex tag and just ignore any warnings, since it should really mean that these pages are NOT included in the search index. Meaning that the other meta tags are really useless. Any thoughts?
Moz Pro | | sfseo0 -
Rel-canonical tag confusion
I had our web development company implement the rel-canonical tag on all pages of our website to get rid of the duplicate content months ago. However, when I use the On Page optimizer tool (in previous version) it would tell me I'm not using the rel-canonical tag correctly on the page I was grading and when I untagged use rel-canonical tag in our CMS (which was pointing to the correct page) my grade would go to an A. Now with the new version it says I'm using it wrong either way, when I have the tag used in my CMS and everything else is good I have a B, but one I click to not use Rel-canonical tag I have a C. Both ways it shows up in On-page tool without a check in Apprpriate Use of Rel Canonical. I've attached pictures. In C version it says - Canonical URL "/info/solutions/" and "/info/solutions/" In B version: Canonical URL "/info/solutions/" What am I doing wrong and how do i fix this? Because ALL of my grades have dropped to Bs and Cs. Thanks! iklEHOjJLZE4966 [URL]]([URL=http://imgur.com/5BYcV][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/5BYcV.jpg[/IMG][/URL]) 5BYcV
Moz Pro | | aircyclemegan0 -
How does SeoMoz works with noindex meta tags?
In my last SeoMoz Crawl I've found a lot of warnings about duplicated content in page with a noindex meta tag. Is that normal? These pages should not be considered as indexable content of my website, isn't it?
Moz Pro | | jgomes0