Meta Tags Explained
and useful links, If
you want to learn how to use meta tags.
This is the place to start. lists all the things webmasters can
do with meta tags and their descriptions.
When the HTML language was first
created, it was recognized that new tags would later be needed for
specialized purposes. Since there wasn't any way to anticipate every
possible need, the META tag was created as a sort of "catch-all."
These tags allow Webmasters to issue an unlimited variety of commands,
or to provide information to a browser, search engine, or automated
program (i.e., robot). The tags are ignored by default unless the
browser or search engine specifically recognizes them.
Meta Tags: Your Questions Answered
If there's one topic that comes
up almost as often as how to submit, it's questions about meta tags.
Meta tags have been mentioned so many times by the press, many people
perceive them as the Holy Grail of search engine marketing. "Don't
even think about building a Web site without knowing the in's and
out's of these mystical meta tags," right? Well, the truth
is that meta tags are far from being a silver bullet solution to
your search engine woes. However, educating yourself is the first
step toward "search engine enlightenment," and thus achieving
those elusive top 10 rankings.
What are meta tags and how are they best
used?
When the HTML language was first
created, it was recognized that new tags would later be needed for
specialized purposes. Since there wasn't any way to anticipate every
possible need, the META tag was created as a sort of "catch-all."
These tags allow Webmasters to issue an unlimited variety of commands,
or to provide information to a browser, search engine, or automated
program (i.e., robot). The tags are ignored by default unless the
browser or search engine specifically recognizes them.
Meta tags are contained in the HEAD
section near the top of the page. They're not displayed to the end
user unless you view the source code of the page. The two most common
meta tags, and the ones we are most concerned about in this article
are keyword and description tags.
The meta keyword tag is designed
to tell the search engine what keywords are important to your page,
and thereby how people should be able to find you when they search.
It should look something like the following:
<META name="keywords"
content="my keywords should be listed here">
Although you can list as many keywords
as you like, most search engines will not read more than about 1000
characters. Include your most important keywords at the start of
the tag.
The meta description
tag is primarily used for telling the search engine what description
you want associated to the page in the search engine's results.
It should look something like this:
<META name="description" content="A
short description of my Web site goes here.">
It's essential that you create a compelling description
for your page to entice people to click through from the search
results.
Each engine that supports the meta description tag
will truncate it down to 150 to 400 characters depending on the
engine. Therefore, include the best portion of your description
in the first 150 characters, but go ahead and add additional sentences
to fill it out to about 400 characters.
It doesn't matter what order you place the tags
in the HEAD area, although it's recommended that you include the
TITLE tag first on the page, before listing any other tags.
Will meta tags improve
my rankings?
Unfortunately, the majority of the major search
engines do not recognize the meta keyword tag at all. A larger number
do recognize the meta description tag for the purpose of creating
a summary for the page. The prevailing philosophy is that search
engines prefer to index text that is clearly VISIBLE to the user,
although exceptions are certainly made. The engines in general consider
invisible text, such as that found in meta tags, s untrustworthy"
since they can be easily abused by an unethical Webmaster. For example,
someone could list out many keywords that do not apply to their
page's content, or they could repeat a keyword many times in hopes
of boosting their rankings
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