Retailers now have new options to change how their products display in Google Search results via the use of robots meta tags and an HTML attribute. These new ways of mark up product pages lets retailers make changes in the search snippets as per their preferences. Retailers could already use schema.org markup to mention how they wish their products to appear in search results. Here are a few ways that retailers can use to restrict products and data of the products being shown on Google.

Recommendation: Google Chrome 86 Developers Tools Update

Show No Snippet For Products

Retailers now can implement the “nosnippet” robots meta tag on the product pages which will prevent any snippet to be displayed in the search results. By using this it will remove all image, textual and rich snippet for the page. Here is how the product page looks like in Google with and without the tag.

product page with or without the tag
Image Source: Search Engine Journal

Mention A Maximum Snippet Length

Retailers now have the option to set the maximum length of the snippet in characters with the “max-snippet:[number]” robots meta tag. If the structured data is more than the maximum length of the snippet, the page will be removed from any free listing. An example:

Mention A Maximum Snippet Length
Image Source: Search Engine Journal

Put A Maximum Size Of the Image

Retailers now can change the product image that displays in their snippets with the “max-image-preview:[setting]” robots meta tag. This tag allows retailers to mention the maximum size of the image preview to be displayed for the images on the page by making use of either “large”, “none” or “standard”.  An Example:

Put A Maximum Size Of the Image
Image Source: Search Engine Journal

Restrict Particular Content From Displaying In A Snippet

Retailers can mention a section of content that they feel like must not be included in the search snippet via the  “data-nosnippet” HTML attribute. Disclaimer: If this attribute is laid on to information about the price, ratings, image, or availability it will then remove the page from any of the free listings.

Restrict Particular Content From Displaying In A Snippet
Image Source: Search Engine Journal

Conclusion

Google’s new mechanisms for retailers are with the attributes for regular pages launched last year. These directives do not implement to information supplied through schema.org markup or data of the product give in through Google Merchant Center. Retailers must remove any schema.org before using any of the preferences before opt-out directives get active. Google states that the restrictions will not impact the ranking of pages in the search results. These options are available to use now for retailers everywhere.

 

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