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
-
Robots.txt file issues on Shopify server
We have repeated issues with one of our ecommerce sites not being crawled. We receive the following message: Our crawler was not able to access the robots.txt file on your site. This often occurs because of a server error from the robots.txt. Although this may have been caused by a temporary outage, we recommend making sure your robots.txt file is accessible and that your network and server are working correctly. Typically errors like this should be investigated and fixed by the site webmaster. Read our troubleshooting guide. Are you aware of an issue with robots.txt on the Shopify servers? It is happening at least twice a month so it is quite an issue.
Moz Pro | | A_Q0 -
Updating Meta Keywords
Hi I am going through the process of cleaning up the SEO on my blog www.shoottokyo.com. Someone recommended that I can use ScreamingFrog to find the location of 4xx errors and I noticed that there are Meta Keywords on about 200 of my posts but some of them are wrong such as it mentions my old city I lived in or my old camera I used to use. I want to clean these up. If I look on the post itself in Wordpress I don't even this this information. Where can I edit it? Is there a way to easily edit across multiple posts? I previously used All in One SEO perhaps these came from that and I need to reinstall that to clean this up? I'm new to all of this expect a lot of questions. Thanks Dave
Moz Pro | | ShootTokyo0 -
Does anyone have suggestions for a good XML Sitemap Generator?
Does anyone have any suggestions on a good XML Sitemap Generator? Also interested in best practices and tips for updating the XML Sitemap. I typically have relied on my web developers to do this however it seems that they have not been setting this up with SEO in mind.
Moz Pro | | webestate0 -
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 -
Can overly dynamic URLs be overcome with canonical meta tags?
I tried searching for questions regarding dynamic URLs and canonical tags, but I couldn't find anything s hopefully this hasn't been covered. There are a large number of overly dynamic URLs reported in our site crawl (>7,000). I haven't looked at each of these, but most of these either have a canonical meta tag or have are indicated as FOLLOW, NO INDEX pages. Will these be enough to overcome any negative SEO impact that may come from overly dynamic URLs? We are down to almost 0 critical errors and this is now the biggest problem reported by the site crawl after too many on page links.
Moz Pro | | afmaury0 -
Canonical tags and SEOmoz crawls
Hi there. Recently, we've made some changes to http://www.gear-zone.co.uk/ to implement canonical tags to some dynamically generated pages to stop duplicate content issues. Previously, these were blocked with robots.txt. In Webmaster Tools, everything looks great - pages crawled has shot up, and overall traffic and sales has seen a positive increase. However the SEOmoz crawl report is now showing a huge increase in duplicate content issues. What I'd like to know is whether SEOmoz registers a canonical tag as preventing a piece of duplicate content, or just adds to it the notices report. That is, if I have 10 pages of duplicate content all with correct canonical tags, will I still see 10 errors in the crawl, but also 10 notices showing a canonical has been found? Or, should it be 0 duplicate content errors, but 10 notices of canonicals? I know it's a small point, but it could potentially have a big difference. Thanks!
Moz Pro | | neooptic0 -
When using Wordpress, why does it show up so many meta data errors on here and on google webmaster? A list of do's would be good?
Using wordpress is a good CMS, yet there sre so many meta data errors occuring, is there a list of what to look out for and good practices when using wordpress?
Moz Pro | | CosmikCarrot0