addons
addons copied to clipboard
mozilla
Add “noindex” meta tag for experimental listings?
Describe the problem and steps to reproduce it:
I’m testing an early version of an add-on so I marked it as “experimental” to limit promotion of the Add-On while still making it available to my beta users.
Is there a way to tell the Add-Ons store to use the “noindex” meta tag (docs) on the listing page for my “experimental” listing so that Google index the listing page? It appears that experimental listing page don’t have the “noindex” meta tag present.
What happened?
I marked an extension as "experimental"
What did you expect to happen?
The extension would have the "noindex" tag and not be indexed by Google
Anything else we should know?
Originally requested in the support forum (link) and was directed ask here.
┆Issue is synchronized with this Jira Task
Language used for Experimental (source):
This add-on is experimental: your add-on is experimental or otherwise not ready for general use. The add-on will be listed but with reduced visibility. You can remove this flag when your add-on is ready for general use.
I can see both arguments—that "experimental" should continue to be indexed by Google, or that "experimental" shouldn't be indexed by Google. My guess is that most people using "experimental" to limit visibility in the Add-On store would also not want exposure via Google. But if that's not going to work, it'd be nice if there was another checkbox under the Experimental checkbox called:
[x] This add-on is experimental: your add-on is experimental or otherwise not ready for general use. The add-on will be listed but with reduced visibility. You can remove this flag when your add-on is ready for general use.
[x] Reduce search engine exposure: your add-on will have the "noindex" meta tag used on the listing page to instruct search engines to not index the listing page. You can remove this flag when your add-on is ready for general use.
Hi,
We're in the process of rethinking a few things around how listing & distribution works, I'm not sure how the experimental flag will play into this but we'll definitely take that into account.
I can see both sides of the argument regarding having an automatic noindex for experimental add-ons or a separate flag, not sure what we'll end up doing yet but as someone who has an experimental add-on or two published that sounds like a nice feature to add.
