SearchGuild Fights Google Toolbar Autolink

(PRWEB) March 8, 2005

SearchGuild, the provider of free javascript code to break the Google Toolbar Autolink feature proposes a meta tag to opt out of tools which alter pages client side.

First things first - we've just made up this meta tag. It's actually not supported by anything yet! So why, I hear you ask, might you implement it? The answer is easy: because there should be one that programs such as the Google Toolbar listen to. People like Google aren't going to invent one for us, their reps have practically said as much. If, as webmasters, we all start using the same one then pretty soon honourable software developers will start to use it and then, hopefully, some of the rest will follow.

The very presence of such a tag on webmaster's pages makes a point. It says to developers such as Google "Hey! You should be paying attention to this. This is what we want. This is what we want to allow you to do here and this is what you shouldn't".

So we're asking you to help Google and Co do the right thing by placing a tiny little meta tag on your pages and maybe asking other webmasters to do the same thing. You can, of course, put it on your pages in addition to the Javascript we've given you (and we recommend you do until Google eventually decides to give an opt out mechanism - hopefully by recognizing this tag).

As an encouragement to honourable software developers we'll be listing and linking to the programs that obey this meta tag.

Further details of the meta tag format and the script to block Google's autolink can be found at http://www.searchguild.com/autoblink.

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