Truth or Myth?

[anteup171]

I have been recently looking into this tag,

<META NAME="googlebot" CONTENT="INDEX, FOLLOW">,

and everywhere I look I'm getting different answers. Some are saying this tag actually tells googlebot to follow, others are saying this does nothing, but most people have no idea?

At least half of the source code I view on the internet, this tag is included.

Is this tag in fact, Truth or a Myth?

 

[Adam]

A search crawler will index your site unless it discovers a tag telling it not to. I don't think there's any use for the example you provided.

 

 

Take a quick look at this article..

 

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=93710

 

 

[anteup171]

Thanks a lot for your reply. I have read this article before, and I know it does not mention it there, but like I said its literally included in at least half of the source code I view on websites, Which may lead some to believe it is relevant.

I think Im gonna have to contact Mythbusters for this one.

[Adam]

"INDEX,FOLLOW" are the default values for the googlebot meta tag, which makes it's use unnecessary in most cases. Most likely people do not understand the use of it and have used it regardless, or they have previously had different values and need Google to register the difference. I shouldn't think it would make a difference to you if you use it or not.

 

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=138269