Does meta "Expires" tag affect website cacheing or indexing?
-
One of our client has a meta expire tag across all pages of their website.
Does that tag affect the website overall caching or indexing?
Their website pages including home page is crawled every 10 days, however the website is popular high traffic websites, receiving 240,000 visits/month.
Please advise what impact this tag will have on the website indexing and caching?
Thanks
Atomic Team
-
It's most likely that Google is ignoring this, and will continue to ignore it.
There are just too many meta tags that you can include, and Google knows they're often used manipulatively. Unless you were using the meta expiry tag a lot and completely correctly, search engines will probably ignore it. (By correctly, I mean, use it for pages that actually do expire, then cutting off internal links after this date.)
That said, it's probably best to remove this tag.
-
Hi James,
The tag mentioned in itself is wrong and hence is not taken into consideration by search engines.
The correct tag should have been
Correct Format is :- Weekday followed with Date (Day Month Year) followed with Time Format as GMT/EST . This is basically the standard RFC format
Refer - http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2068/rfc2068 for more details on RFC Format.
The tag if put correctly states an indication for search engine to delete expired documents from a search engine, unless been followed with a revisit tag
So, had the correct tag would have been put in place - all the pages would have been deleted from Google Index - as the tag states that the document is expired. It's a kind of 'nofollow' indication to Google. However, most of the Search marketers do not use meta expire tag, rather
- they 301 it, if the page has become redundant
or follow it it with revisit tag to let search engines to start crawling it from specified date onwards.
-
Thanks Gagan for the reply. However, you reply is more towards where to use, whereas my query is one of our clients has already used this tag on their website. So, would it affect their website's indexing or caching? Thanks.
-
To the best of my knowledge, Ideally Meta Expires is used for an Event. Suppose there is a music show or event - it may be wise to use Meta Expires as it indicates to Google to delete the page from index when the expiry time meets.
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
-
Is the size of website a ranking factor?
I've heard it said that by increasing the number of pages on a website (by adding new content) that this in iself can boost a site's ranking. Is this an old wives tale or is there a grain of truth here? My website - www.skydas.lv metāla durvis Metāla durvju montāža - http://sosdienests.lv
Web Design | | Felter0 -
Is the 'too many links' caused by the tags?
Hello Just got my seomoz report and decided I better start takiling things. Got a lot of 'too many links' on the report. I don't have control over website design and before I talk to designer I thought I should have a bit of an handle on what I am talking about. I've taken one page that has 483 links. Is this caused by the tags box and would it be a good idea to have it removed? http://commonwealthcontractors.com/uk-visas/tier-2-general-visas-formerly-uk-work-permits/ Regards Niamh
Web Design | | Niamh20 -
Does it do harm if you add a rel="canonical" tag on a page that doesn't need it?
If a page is clearly unique and there is obviously no canonical tag needed, does it hurt anything if one has been added?
Web Design | | jaychow0 -
Any advice for best practice for mobile versions of websites?
Hi Mozzers, I am looking to develop a mobile version of one of my sites and was wondering what was considered best practice for the following: Where to host it: m.domain.com or domain.com/mobile ? Is rel='canonical' enough to avoid mobile version being indexed or should I use "noindex" on mobile version? How to handle tablets? Which screen size sees mobile version? Which sees full site version? Thanks in advance Geoff
Web Design | | SEM-Freak1 -
How do I learn how to build custom wordpress websites?
Is wordpress a good platform to build websites with? If so, what are some good resources to learn how to build custom websites using wordpress?
Web Design | | Lael0 -
What are some of the best website hosting platforms for Wordpress?
I'm looking for a new hosting provider and have been told to find one that specializes in Wordpress hosting because of higher page speed load times, etc.. Can anyone recommend a couple of Wordpress Hosting providers
Web Design | | webestate0 -
Free website templates without spam
Where is a good site for joomla and wordpress website templates that are free? I want to learn how to do everything on a zero budget (except for hosting and domain name) and I'd like to find some decent free templates.
Web Design | | ilyaelbert0