Google gives site owners the ability to customize how their content is pre-listed in search results.

By default, Google has always generated search snippets according to user requests and the types of devices they use.

However, before there was no room for customization – you could only allow a text fragment or prevent it.

Now Google is introducing several methods that allow a finer-grained configuration of the preview content displayed for web pages.

These methods include the use of robot meta tags as well as a new type of HTML attribute. Here is more information about each of these methods.

Content displayed in previews of search snippets can now be customized using robot meta tags.

The following robot meta tags can be added to the HTML page or specified via the HTTP x-robots-tag header:

The above robots meta tags can also be combined, for example:

Google is introducing all-new ways to limit which part of a page can be shown as a preview in search results.

The new HTML attribute “data-nosnippet” on range, diva, and section elements can prevent certain parts of the html page from being displayed in a text fragment in search results.

In other words – if you want to prevent Google from giving away too much of your content in search results, this is the method you want to use.

Here is an example:

Harry Houdini is undoubtedly the most famous wizard to ever live.

In this example, if someone searched for a query like “most famous magician”, the HTML attribute would prevent Google from providing a response (Harry Houdini) in search results.

What you need to know about sEOs and site owners

Here’s a sparkling update on these changes.

No changes to search rankings this update will only affect how snippets appear in search results. Google confirms that these settings will have no effect on search rankings.

Depending on how the site owner chooses to configure these settings, there may be an impact on CTR that may affect traffic. But it’s not related to search rankings.

When do these changes take effect? The robot meta tag preview settings will take effect in mid-to-late October 2019. It may take a week for the global deployment to be completed once it starts.

The HTML data-nosnippet attribute will be effective later this year. There is no specific time frame for this particular parameter.

Will these new changes affect the display of rich results? The content of structured data that can be displayed as a rich result will not be affected by any of these new settings.

Site owners already have control over the content displayed in rich results, what they prefer to include in the structured data itself.

How will these changes affect the fragments? The recommended snippets depend on the availability of the preview content. So if you restrict the preview content too much it may no longer be eligible to be displayed as a featured snippet, although it may still be displayed as a regular snippet.

The minimum number of characters required for a featured snippet varies by language, so Google cannot provide an exact maximum length to ensure the right one.

Can the site owners to experiment with the length of the fragment? Site owners can fully customize these settings at any time. For example, if you specify the length of a max snippet and then decide that you prefer to display a longer snippet in search results, you can simply change the HTML attribute.

Google notes that these new methods of customizing search snippet previews will work just like other results displayed around the world. If the settings are changed, the new settings will appear in the search results the next time Google overflows the page.

Google will 100% follow these settings, and the new settings will not be considered as hints or suggestions. Google will fully comply with the site owners ‘ preferences as specified in the robot meta tags and / or HTML attribute.

No difference between desktop and mobile device settings will be applied to both mobile and desktop search results. If the site has separate mobile and desktop versions, the same markup should be used on both.

These options are available to site owners now, but the changes will not be reflected in search results until mid-to late October.

For more information, see Google’s developer documentation on meta tags.

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Matt South has been the lead news writer at Search Engine Journal since 2013. With a degree in communications, Matt … (Read the full bio)

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