Does the SEOMoz weekly crawl that highlights no meta description tag, take into account if there is a meta robots noindex,follow tag on the pages it indicates the missing meta descriptions?

[callassist]

The weekly crawl website report is telling me that there are pages that have missing meta description tags, yet I've implemented meta robots tags to 'noindex, follow' those pages which are visible in those page source files. As far as Google Is concerned, surely this then won't be a problem since it is being instructed NOT to consider these specific pages for indexing. I am assuming that the weekly SEOmoz website crawl is simply throwing the missing meta description crawl findings into its report without itself observing that the particluar URL references contain the meta robots 'noindex,follow' tag ???? Appreciate if you can clairfy if this is the case.

It would help me understand that (at least in terms of my efforts towards Google) your own crawl doesn't observe the meta robots tag instruction, hence the resultant report's flagging the discrepancy.

[ShaMenz]

Hey Cyrus!

Nice to bump into you in Q&A

I have to say I actually agree with Adam's view specifically in ensuring that pages have nice relevant page Titles that speak to the user. Even though I may not want a page indexed by a search engine, if users can see it then I should use everything at my disposal to offer good information & encourage conversion. Identifying pages with missing or duplicate information is part of this.

The "ignore" feature will just give me the best of both worlds!

Sha

[Cyrus-Shepard]

Unfortunately this is one of those issues where there is no "one-sized-fits-all" solution. You are absolutely correct that the search engines most likely don't give a hoot about missing meta description on noindexed pages.

That said, there are a small number of SEOs like Adam Audette that go as far as recommending unique titles and meta data for certain no-indexed pages in order to add relevance. Go figure.

As Sha mentioned, SEOmoz is working on a feature that would allow you to ignore these specific notices. We realize they can be an inconvience in cases like these.

Regardless, thanks for the heads up. Best of luck with your SEO.

[ShaMenz]

Hi callassist,

You are correct in assuming that the SEOmoz crawler does not distinguish pages that are noindexed.

There is a simple explanation of the reason for this in a response to this thread by Daniel Deceuster.

As you will see there, a feature request is already in play for a feature to allow users to "turn off" the pages they wish to ignore in their reports (and this would be an example of where that will be very useful). If you follow the link in the previous thread, you will be able to keep updated on progress with the feature request.

Hope that helps,

Sha