Google Answers How It Handles A Specific Non-Standard Meta Tag

Google’s Martin Splitt answered a query about how Googlebot responds to a pre-render meta tag that has the worth of 404 web page not discovered. It’s an excellent query as a result of that is the form of meta tag, a non-standard meta component, isn’t typically encountered so it’s good to know what to do when one thing like this comes up.

The individual asking the query wished to find out about how Google may reply to a meta tag within the head part that has the title “prerender-status-code” and a worth of “404” which implies that the requested web page just isn’t discovered.

The query was requested by an individual named Martin and Martin Splitt of Google is the one who answered it.

That is the query :

“Martin is asking: What does Googlebot do when it finds <meta title=”prerender-status-code” content material=”404″> ?”

Martin Splitt answered:

“Effectively Martin, that’s straightforward to say, Googlebot at present ignores that standing code.

I suppose that is coming from a single web page software that’s client-side rendered and also you wish to keep away from soft-404s, in that case take into account including <meta title=”robots” content material=”noindex”> or redirect to a web page the place the server responds with the 404 standing code.

For extra info on that see our documentation at builders.google.com/search.”

What’s Prerender-Standing-Code?

The prerender-status-code meta component (typically known as meta tag) just isn’t an official meta tag and there’s no documentation on it on the Worldwide Internet Consortium (W3C.org), the place the official HTML requirements are created.

That is extra of a proprietary or non-standard meta component. Non-standard meta parts are aren’t a part of the official W3C HTML specs. Some non-standard meta parts are browser-specific or are created for particular functions. Consequently, they is probably not supported by totally different browsers or by serps. and their habits is probably not constant throughout totally different browsers

The prerender-status-code meta component is an instance of a non-standard meta component that additionally occurs to not be supported by Google.

One other non-standard meta component that’s not supported by Google is the meta key phrases component. There isn’t any reference to it on the W3C.org and it was by no means part of the official HTML requirements. It was a meta component that was invented by serps within the Nineties.

The X-UA-Suitable meta component is an instance of a browser-specific non-standard meta component that’s an outdated meta component that was particular to the outdated Web Explorer net browser.

That is an instance of the X-UA-Suitable meta component:

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Suitable" content material="IE=edge">

The takeaway from Martin’s reply in regards to the prerender-status-code meta component is that many non-standard meta parts aren’t supported by Google.

One other takeaway is that not each meta tag is part of the official HTML requirements which will be discovered on the World Vast Internet Consortium web site (W3C.org). These non-official meta parts are known as non-standard meta parts.

Extra info will be discovered at Google’s assist web page about supported meta tags, which was final up to date on December 1, 2023.

Meta tags and attributes that Google supports

Take heed to the Google Workplace hours video on the 3:46 minute mark:

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