BlogSpot SEO Advanced SEO : Robots.txt, Meta Tag & More

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SEO Options on BlogSpot
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BlogSpot SEO
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Today seems to be a happy Blogger day for BlogSpot user as BlogSpot added some of the advanced SEO options for Blogger blogs. We will dive into all the new feature in details after a break but let me start with few important relevant talk.

Whenever we pitch about BlogSpot Vs. WordPress, we always give WordPress an edge in the terms of SEO. By adding new SEO features in BlogSpot, Google have fixed the SEO difference by a great extent. Though, this is not going to be “The changes”, which will make me suggest you to stick to BlogSpot for Professional Blogging. But, all the new changes are undoubtedly deserve an applause as after years, BlogSpot bloggers got much-needed SEO love.

So, let’s not waste our time and learn about all new features and how to use it.

How to Enable BlogSpot Advanced SEO settings?

Login to your Blogger dashboard and under settings > search preference you will find all the new SEO options which are added by Blogger team. You have to enable all the settings one by one, and my suggestion is to read this guide seriously else a wrong settings (BlogSpot Robots.txt), may lead to complete de-indexing of your blog.

BlogSpot Advanced SEO settings
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I don’t mean to scare you, but all I’m saying is it’s time to get serious as Google wants to take SEO very seriously. Period!.

In this iteration, here are new SEO features added by Blogger team:

  • Description meta tag:
  • Custom 404-page message
  • Custom redirects (Redirect 404 pages to any page on your blog).
  • Custom robots.txt
  • Custom Robots header tags
  • No follow tag, open link in new tab

Lets Dive into World of BlogSpot Search preference settings:

Lets, look into all the feature one by one and my suggestion implement it on your blog for better search engine optimization of your Blogger blog.

Description Meta tags:

BlogSpot Meta tags
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This is where you will be explaining what your blog is about. An informative description within 150 character will help readers to understand about your blog and will help you to get more click from search engine. Also, from SEO perspective, I would suggest you to use your main keyword here in BlogSpot meta tags description. For ex:

ShoutMeLoud is a Blogging hub for Bloggers and Internet marketers to learn about tricks of Blogging, WordPress, Affiliate marketing, SEO and how to make money online.

Make sure you explain about your blog within 150 characters, as search engine ignore characters after 150. Once you enable this feature and added meta tags after search engine bot recrawls your site, search engine will show your meta description like this in search engine:

description meta tags in search engine result
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Custom 404 message:

A 404 page is usually a mistyped pages or a visitor land on a page, which doesn’t exceed. This custom 404 message will let you create the custom HTML message, which you can display on your Blogger 404 pages. Now, it’s time for you to use your creativity and design something awesome.

BlogSpot 404 Pages
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Here is one example, HTML message which I have created, and you can change the link and text to spice up your 404 page on BlogSpot.

Seems like The internet is broken,

and you landed here by mistake. But, I got something special for you andI picked the best pages from my site here. Check out my top 5 hand picked post:

 


 

<p>&#160;</p>

 

<ul>
  <li><a href="https://www.shoutmeloud.com" target="_blank">How to be the king of the world

 

  <li><a href="https://www.shoutmeloud.com" target="_blank">How to kill an elephant by smile</a></li>
</ul>

 

<p>If you lost the heart to browse my site, you can still poke me on Facebook <a href="http://Facebook.com/ShoutMeLoud" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>

Custom redirects:

Custom redirects
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This is very useful when any 3rd party site linked to your site and added a link that doesn’t exist or if you remove a page and want to redirect the traffic. You can use Google Webmaster tool to find all such 404 pages and set the redirection. It might be a little lengthy process, but in some cases it is very useful to tap the missing traffic and convert them into real traffic.

Nofollow/Open in new tab:

BlogSpot nofollow link rel
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Before, I go into detail of this post, my suggestion is to read my post on Bounce rate, and that will give you enough idea about why opening external links in the new tab is important. Now, whenever you link to a site from the post editor, it will give two new options: Add the nofollow attribute and Open in new tab.

If the word, nofollow sounds like a rocket science to you, read my post on why you need to add nofollow tag to a link. Earlier, we used to add nofollow link attribute using HTML, but this new one click link addition will make the task very easier. My suggestion for you is to use nofollow link attribute only when you have to link to irrelevant domains and pages that you don’t trust.

For example: use it, when you are writing about some anti-hacking trick, and you have to link to hacking sites for giving examples.

Robots.txt for BlogSpot:

Well, this is one part of new BlogSpot SEO setup, which I want you to use it carefully. A wrong, settings may lead to deindexing of a big part of your site. A Robots.txt file is used to stop search engine bots from crawling the “Not so important” part of your blog. For example, Search pages, archive pages and so on.  If you are new to Robots.txt, this video by Google Engineer, Matt Cutts will give you enough basic info about BlogSpot robots.txt file:

In nutshell, I suggest you to use Robots.txt to point to your sitemap URL and control No-indexing by noindex tag in custom robots meta tags. For more information, read official page on BlogSpot robots.txt. I will cover a detailed info on Blogger robots.txt in coming days.

Custom robots header tags:

Custom robots header tags
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One much needed feature for SEO of your BlogSpot blog, though it looks like little confusing but this guide from Google will again try to explain everything in simple words.

Here is an image, which explains all the directives under Blogger custom Robots header tag:

Custom robots header tags meaning
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Robots meta tag and description is also available on single post, which makes it more search engine friendly. Specially, I liked the idea of Unavailable_after directive, which will help you to automatically deindex news post which usually expires after some time.

Well, my suggestion for every BlogSpot blogger is to get a custom domain and enjoy the power of new BlogSpot SEO and drive more traffic to your blog post. If you have any query regarding above Blogger new search preference option, ask via comment.  If you find this post useful, don’t forget to share and +1 this post.

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Authored By
A Blogger, Author and a speaker! Harsh Agrawal is recognized as a leader in digital marketing and FinTech space. Fountainhead of ShoutMeLoud, and a Speaker at ASW, Hero Mindmine, Inorbit, IBM, India blockchain summit. Also, an award-winning blogger.

49 thoughts on “BlogSpot SEO Advanced SEO : Robots.txt, Meta Tag & More”

  1. 99Quotes

    Hi… Today I received a message from google webmasters that “New Index coverage issue detected for the site”.

    I am not so techy. below the message ” Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt”. When I tried to find the pages which are having issues are all related to “Labels” of my blogger.

    I read your guide, but I couldn’t figure out how can I solve the issue? Can you help me with it?

  2. Rishabh

    Thank you sir for so detailed article on meta tags and robots.txt. I am going through all of your posts. But sir I am very new to blogging so I have a confusion, should I use meta tags on each posts or just use meta tags in main HTMl theme?

    Basically, while writing a new post, I fill the title, labels, description as given on blogger.
    Please help me sir.

  3. Ankeet Singh

    Hello harsh, I want to know why have you selected noindex in archive and search pages?

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      @Ankeet
      Coz these pages doesn’t add any value for search engine. They are purely for better navigation for your readers.

  4. Viswa

    nice sir, I have configured my blog’s Custom robots header tags , Finally i have cleared my doubts, Thanks

  5. mesigo

    I really love your post i have done all you said except the robots.txt file code please where can i get such code
    please if you have any let me know

  6. ubee udosen

    I sincerely appreciate your effort. I’m from Nigeria but your educative blog has been the best. Guess what? I’m a big fan of your blog. Just wanted to ask. Can I setup google AdSense on WordPress and get paid?

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      Thank you Ubee. yes, you can place Adsense ad on your self hosted WordPress blog and get paid when someone clicks on your ad.

  7. Diana

    Awesome article. Do you think that google search engine will allow modified robot.txt on blogger? Thanks for the answer.

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      Hey Diana,

      I assume by modified you mean custom robot.txt. Yes, you can do that.
      Go to Settings >> Search Preferences ›› Crawlers and indexing ›› Custom robots.txt ›› Edit ›› Yes. Now paste your robots.txt file code in the box. Click on Save Changes button.

  8. vally

    Sir Harsh, i v been following your blog. Your posts has been helpful. Thank you for this great knowledge. Though i v not accepted via adsense i so much belief i will.

  9. Carolyn

    This is great, I have been really frustrated with blogging because of low traffic. But everything seems clear now.
    I will try all you have written out here.
    Thanks for the good work

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      Hey Carolyn,

      Thanks for reading.Keep coming back.

      1. Devesh

        Hi Harsh,

        I have a login already by my Gmail account. I have custom domain also. Now I should wait for the rejection or I can continue with a new request and how?

  10. Aksa Sahi

    no doubt you have a clear look about blogger setting, can you explain how do i do posting by mobile phone

  11. Sakkariya Kunnummal

    Hi Harsh, I went through your blog, such a good and informative things you had shared for us. we expecting much for new and advanced informations and thoughts from you.. thanks

  12. Ali Hamidu

    Hello Harsh . I have completed this section on one as explained. Can I proceed to apply for Adsense and hope it will be a success ?
    Ali is my name …. From Nigeria

  13. LPerry

    What Blogspot Template/Theme has this search description option for individual posts? I am using the Simple Template and under settings/ search preferences, it only allows you to activate and enter a meta description for the entire blog.

    1. Yogesh Bajpai

      Enable Search description then only search description will appear on every post and you can provide a proper search description for meta description tag.

  14. Arabinda

    Hello,

    I am a new blogger and working on improving traffic to my site. Harsh, your posts are awesome and great source of information for a newbie.

    I write about investing/trading in Indian stock market.
    I have a question about. Actually, I am confused about limiting the crawler for a part of site and enabling for other part. Why would someone do it? Am I missing something?

    For example, in a blog it may be desirable to limit the crawler from going into older posts (may be 5/6 year old post) but relatively newer post should be enabled for crawling.

    What do you say?

    Thanks!

  15. Keshav

    Will you please explain me why you selected the No-Index in search page if No-index tells not to index the page. So in this case how can i improve my site visibility.

  16. Prasad

    This article is very helpful to me and I have one doubt about “Custom robots header tags” will post some more details about this step in blogger. Because I have a problem about my I am marking tick on noindex for archive but so many links are indexing in search results.

    will you help me about that …. 🙁

    thanks.

  17. Abhishek Jungi

    Hello i am new in blogging. this is nice article, i just want to know how to create custom sitemap in blogspot.

    Thanks in advance

  18. Aravind naveen

    Hi harsh! I’m became your Fan on Reading this post. I made this changes and believe it will make a considerable change too..! Thanks for this lovely post

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