What is the NOODP tag anyway? It is a meta tag adopted by MSN first and followed by Google that allows a web site owner to opt out from having the search engines display the Open Directory information in the organic SERPs. Many of us have been waiting for Yahoo to follow suit because there are times that the Open Directory information will be displayed for a site as opposed to the site's title tag and either snippet of content or meta description tag for the actual description.

Now Yahoo will finally support the tag, at least according to Tim Mayer who announced this after being questioned about it by Barry Schwartz on The Pulse last night. Tim first pointed out that they have attempted to sort out how a listing is displayed algorithmically but seeing that the tag now exists, they will add support for it in the next couple of weeks.

Why the big deal anyway? Well for starters, Open Directory descriptions for sites are usually written in the fashion of a third party review of what the site itself offers as opposed to an informative description describing the company, product and/or service. Also a Open Directory listing may be out of date and trying to get ODP editors to change an old listing is like pulling teeth. With this in mind, many webmasters want more control over how their sites are displayed in the organic search results of search engines. The NOODP tag gives them that control.

When asked if Yahoo will add a tag that will allow web site owners to opt out from having the Yahoo Directory information displayed in the same way ODP is sometimes displayed, Tim replied that they currently do not plan to add such a tag but may do so in the future. For now, they will simply rely on how the algorithm decides to form a listing.