Blogger Introduced New Search Preference Option

Hi Friends, Blogger has Introduced a New “Search Preferences” Option. This is Really a Great Option for blogs on Blogger Platform. Blogger added the Meta Tags, Customize Robots.txt, Redirects, Customize 404 Error Page option, Alt tags for Images.

SEO is a major part in any Website or Blog. Before Blogger had not Supported SEO. But now on Blogger SEO is Fully Functional and Dynamic. We can set the Meta Description for Each Single Post and Robots Tags separately.

New SEO Features Added By Blogger Team:

1. Search Meta Description
2. Custom Post Meta Description
3. Custom 404 Error Page
4. Redirects
5. Custom Robots.txt (For Advanced users)
6. Custom Robots Header Tags (For Advanced users)
7. Alt and Title tags for Images
8. Nofollow attribute for post Editor links 

Enable The Search Preference Option

This option is only Available in New Blogger UI Dashboard. to Enable the Options
Go to New Blogger Dashboard > Select the Blog
Select the Settings Tab > Search Preference 

Search Description

This is the General Description for Home Page to Optimize Home page/Blog and this Description is Visible on Search Results of Home page.
Search Description Should be a Short Description about your Blog and Max 150 Characters in Length.

Custom Post Meta Description

This is the Custom Post Meta Description for Each and Every Individual Post. You can Set and Customize the Each Post Description While Creating or Editing the post area.
Under the Post Settings(on Right side of Creating/Editing Post) Click the Search Description. Enter the Small Description about your Post. Looks like there is No Limits to the Description. But Google Will Crawl Around 160+ Characters only. So Keep your Post Description as Short as possible.

Custom 404 Error Page

Most of you know that Google webmasters give you several links which are either broken or no more exits. Broken links refer to Pages that no more exits on your blog because for some reason you may have deleted them. Now if some website is linking one of your posts that you deleted then you wont get the reward of the PageRank juice from that website to yours instead if people click that link they will land no where in your blog and will see a 404 Page not found error. There was no concept of a 404 error page before instead this page would appear:

But Now Blogger Providing the Custom Error/404 Not Found Page.You can add Custom Error/404 message with HTML tags or Even Images Also.

Here is a simple example, HTML message which will a simple 404 page on BlogSpot.

<b>Ooooooops</b> 404 Page Not Found!.
<br />
<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxzud0vvxMjQch71nRH-xfQjtQxu3IaG3lUaU7zIcbXnL7foWB6fFljtJYE3I7_joH4tdLDYnFD1ehqKNFPG3r0IUeMdbO_lYq_EoYrtJnA4oioJ0-9XtmE13DwiC1IUkAkNkq9fCGla8/s1600/404-error-page-not-found.png" alt="" title="" />

Redirects

This is also A Great New Option in Blogger.
To Redirect a One Page form Another Page, You can use this Option and Redirect easily.
The Redirection is 302 Temporary Redirection and Redirection is sent through HTTP Headers.

 We Can Make Redirections Using The Following Steps.

1. Click the edit link next to Custom Redirects
2. Click the  checkbox to simplify the options
3. Now you get a From and To input options
4. Insert the link of your deleted Post inside From box and insert the link of your new post inside To box.
5. Click Save changes

You can create several redirects by clicking the New redirect button. If you are confused where to redirect a deleted page or post then you can simply redirect all broken links to your Homepage in order to flow all PageRank juice there.

Custom “Robots.txt”

Blogger has Provided the Option to Edit and Customize the robots.txt file. This is a Key file for Search Engine Robots.
Using this robots.txt You can Allow or Block the Search Engine Robots to Crawl/Index the pages.
Usually every website has a robots.txt. You can access the robots.txt file using the url http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/robots.txt
robots.txt file for blogtipsntricks is http://www.blogtipsntricks.com/robots.txt

Warning!! Changing or Modifying the Robot.txt file should Effect the Search engine Visibility!

To Customize the robots.txt file visit this page for Instructions, please be-careful while editing the robots.txt file.

Custom Robots Header Tags

This is Robot tags to Control the Search Engine Robots. This Tags are usually set in (X)HTML Pages OR sent through HTTP Headers to Allow or Block the Robots.
In the Case of Blogger these tags are sent through the HTTP header.

Warning!! Changing or Modifying the Robots Header Options should Effect the Search engine Visibility!

You can set the Robots tags to Home Page, Archive/Label Pages, Post Pages on Crawlers and indexing Section in Search Preference tab.

Custom Robots Header Tags for Individual Posts

These are the Custom Robots Header Tags for Each and Every Individual Post. These are also sent through HTTP Header.
You can customize the Custom Robots Header While Creating OR Editing Post.

Meaning of Each Custom robots header tags (taken from Google Webmaster EDU page )

Directive	Meaning
all	There are no restrictions for indexing or serving. Note: this directive is the default value and has no effect if explicitly listed.
noindex	Do not show this page in search results and do not show a “Cached” link in search results.
nofollow	Do not follow the links on this page
none	Equivalent to noindex, nofollow
noarchive	Do not show a “Cached” link in search results.
nosnippet	Do not show a snippet in the search results for this page
noodp	Do not use metadata from the Open Directory project for titles or snippets shown for this page.
notranslate	Do not offer translation of this page in search results.
noimageindex	Do not index images on this page.
unavailable_after: [RFC-850 date/time]	Do not show this page in search results after the specified date/time. The date/time must be specified in the RFC 850 format.

Alt and Title tags for Images

Alt and Title Tags for Images Help in Indexing the Images. Your images are easily indexed by Google Image Bots or Other Image Bots with this Alt and Title Tags.
To set the Alt and Title tags for Images,

1. Upload and Add the Images to Post Editor.
2. Click on the Image that you want to set the Alt and Title tags.
3. A small menu appear Above/Below the Image, Choose Properties Option.
4. On the Popup prompt, enter the Title and Alt Tags for the Image.

Nofollow attribute for post Editor links

Now whenever you need to create a link in post editor you will see two options

1. Open this link in new window
2. Add rel="nofollow" attribute

Choose nofollow attribute for external links(links to other site from your blog) and remember Internal links should never be tagged as nofollow.

I hope This Post is useful to You. and A BIG thanks to Blogger Team. Read the Official Blogger Announcement Here!!.
Please Leave your Comments on this Blogger Update.