| Google has recently announced a new meta tag that | | | | car hire and insurance. Contact information. Now this |
| it’s spiders will take notice of that allows you | | | | comes entirely from their ODP listing. However, their |
| more control over the text snippet they use in the | | | | Meta tags from their homepage read: Title: First |
| search results. Basically, in it’s search results, | | | | Choice - Book your dream holiday online - Great value |
| Google uses the text in the Meta Description tag | | | | holiday packages - Family package holidays - Bargain |
| (well the first 155 characters anyway) as the | | | | all inclusive holidays - Discount online travel agent - |
| description snippet and the underlined clickable title | | | | Last minute holiday deals - Free kids holidays |
| comes from the Title meta tag. All well and good and | | | | Description: Find great value holiday packages and |
| basic webmaster stuff to set these up and make an | | | | bargain all inclusive holidays from the online travel |
| appealing title and description to entice Google | | | | agent First Choice where last minute holiday deals |
| searchers to click on your link. However, if your site | | | | and free kids holidays can be found. Albeit the title |
| is listed in the Open Directory Project (ODP) ( then | | | | and description are too long for Google, so they |
| things are completely different. Obtaining an ODP | | | | would shorten them, but still far more appealing to a |
| listing was always a top priority for savvy | | | | potential customer when they see that in the search |
| webmasters, as it always seemed to give an extra | | | | results, don’t you think? So how do we force |
| boost in the Google rankings (all other things being | | | | Google to use our Meta tags rather than the ODP |
| equal). However one drawback is that where a site is | | | | title and description? Simple. Use the following meta |
| listed in ODP, Google takes the title and description | | | | tag in the head section of your webpages: META |
| from the ODP listing instead of website’s own | | | | NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP" Not that not |
| meta tags. Why does this matter? As the ODP is | | | | all search engine robots will recognise this metatag, |
| entirely compiled by human reviewers, they generally | | | | so to specifically target Google you can alternatively |
| edit the listings, so that the titles and descriptions are | | | | use the following: META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" |
| not overly hyped and sales orientated – in effect | | | | CONTENT="NOODP" It will take some time for |
| they “dumb them down”. The result: a | | | | Google to update it’s database after inserting |
| generally bland title and description. Let’s look at | | | | this tag, but eventually your website should have the |
| example - First Choice Holidays (a major UK tour | | | | appealing title and description that you choose, rather |
| operator) Their Google listing is: Title: First Choice | | | | than the watered down version of some anonymous |
| Holidays Description: Services include holidays, flights, | | | | ODP Editor. |