Want to make sure that your feeds are not indexed by Google and other compliant search engines? Add the following code to the channel element of your XML-based (RSS, etc.) feeds:

<xhtml:meta xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" name="robots" content="noindex" />

Here is an example of how I use this tag for Perishable Press feeds (vertical spacing added for emphasis):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" version="2.0">

<channel>
	<title>Perishable Press</title>
	<link>http://perishablepress.com/press</link>
	<description>Digital Design and Dialogue ~</description>
	<pubDate>Mon, 29 Oct 2007 21:38:24</pubDate>
	<language>en</language>


	<xhtml:meta xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" name="robots" content="noindex" />


	<image>
	   <link>http://perishablepress.com/</link>
	   <url>http://perishablepress.com/logos/perishable-press.jpeg</url>
	   <title>Perishable Press</title>
	</image>
	<item>
	   <title>Welcome to Perishable Press</title>
	   <link>http://perishablepress.com/</link>
	   <dc:creator>Perishable</dc:creator>
	   <dc:subject>WordPress</dc:subject>
	   .
	   .
	   .

Of course, other meta elements may be added as well, including this one that disallows Yahoo! Pipes from processing your feed:

<meta xmlns="http://pipes.yahoo.com" name="pipes" content="noprocess" />

While we’re at it, what are some other useful meta elements to add to XML/RSS feeds?

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