Meta Tags Web Notes can be found by opening Power Point and going to this file: (H:/OPEN/DALEY/WEB/NOTES/ META TAGS)

Meta Tags

Web Notes can be found by opening Power Point and going to this file:

(H:/OPEN/DALEY/WEB/NOTES/ META TAGS)

What are Meta Tags?

Extra information that you can add to your web pages.

This information can range from the more popular keywords and description to the more boring robots and copyright.

Example: <meta name=“Joe’s

Landscaping" content=“Joe’s Landscaping, Mays Landing, NJ Specializing in mowing, fertilizing and seeding.">

Will Meta Tags help my page rank in search engines?

Yes and no. Really more no than yes.

In the earlier days of the Internet keywords were very important to early search engines.

As the web grew and more people tried to get noticed, the keyword system got a little abused.

Most search engines started using other criteria as well in their ranking system. In most search engines, keywords play a part, but not a huge part when determining relevance.

Two types of Meta Tags

There are two types of meta tags... name http-equiv.

Name meta tags

The basic structure of the name type meta tag is listed below each is made up of name and content.<meta name=“Joe’s Landscaping" content="

Joe’s Landscaping, Mays Landing, NJ Specializing in mowing, fertilizing and seeding ">

Meta tags go in the head section of your document...

Description meta tag

Part of the “name” meta tagThis is description of the page or site. In your description use words and

phrases that you would like to show up in a search.

Description Sample

<meta name="description" content="Joe's Widget Company - your complete widget headquarters. All sizes and colors of widgets from extra small to extra woofy. Online ordering and overnight delivery available.">

How it would look on a search query

Joe's Widget CompanyJoe's Widget Company - your complete widget headquarters. All sizes and colors of widgets from extra small to extra woofy. Online ordering and overnight delivery available.URL: http://www.joeswidgets.com/

Keyword meta tag

Part of the “name” meta tagA comma-delimited list of keywords and

short phrases...

Keyword Sample

<meta name="keywords" content="widgets, widget holders, ergonomic aids, tools, braces, Joe's Widget Company, widgomatic">

Easy Does it

Don't get too crazy with keyword and description meta tags. The search engines have gotten pretty smart lately and they have

ways to weed out overdone keyword lists. Whatever weight they give to keywords and descriptions will be

diminished if you did something like this... <meta name="description" content="Lots of widgets and more

widgets and widgets for widgets, not to mention widgets and the worlds biggest collection of widgets. Joe's Widgets are the widget of widgets."><meta name="keywords" content="widgets, widgets, widgets, big widgets, small widgets, red widgets, blue widgets, yellow widgets, tall widgets, widgets widgets,">

If you overload your meta tags with the hope of ranking higher, you might instead find yourself penalized and your page might be tossed out of the index all together.

Your Assignment

Take a company from the end of your row

On page 24 in your manual you will be writing descriptions and keywords for your company

Complete #1 through #5

Robots / spiders

A search engine uses a computer program to find and index (catalog) web pages.

It "moves" from one page to the next by following links.

This type of computer program is called a "spider" or a "robot".

These robots can be told what links to follow or not follow, pages to index or not index.

The most common method (assuming you wanted to control the robot) is to make use of the robots meta tag in individual pages...

Example of Robots

<meta name="robots" content="all|none|index|noindex|follow|nofollow">Whenever you see a list of items separated

by a pipe -> | , the pipe means "or". You (normally) may choose one from the list

of items.

What each item in the Robot does…

All This is the default. To "index" means to place in their database so it is

available for searches. It means that the spiders (or robots) can index this

page and follow all links on this page. If you want robots to index everything and follow

everything, then just skip the robots tag. The robots will index and follow everything

automatically.


None instructs the browser to basically ignore the

page. Don't index anything and don't follow any

links.


IndexThe robot should index the page.


NoindexThe robot may not index the page, but it

is welcome to follow links on the page.


followThe robot may follow links on the page.


nofollowThe robot is welcome to index the page,

but may not follow any links on the page.

What’s the point

If you're thinking there seems to be a bit of overlap in those instructions…there is!

For the most part, all you need to worry about are none, noindex and nofollow, or just leave that meta tag out for the robot to index and follow everything.

So what’s the point…I’m just trying to show you some of the tricks of the trade Check out good corporate sites like FORD, BANK

OF AMERICA, etc. Look at their meta tags

Some Examples

How do I prevent the spiders from indexing my page?

<meta name="robots" content="noindex">

Some Examples

How do I prevent the spiders from following links on my page?

<meta name="robots" content="nofollow">

Some Examples

How do I get a search engine to completely ignore my page?

<meta name="robots" content="none">

Some Examples

What do I do if I want the search engines to index the page and follow all links?

Don't add a robots meta tag. The spiders will index and follow everything

automatically.

The end of spiders / robots

The spider programs used by search engines are usually very well behaved and they obey what's in the robots meta tag

Some spiders however, such as those used in email harvesters are bad robots. They could care less what you specify and they

index and follow whatever they want. They don’t do any harm... they just collect

information (usually email addresses) for whoever is running the spider. And you can guess what happens with this info…

A refresher

Remember this .. When you click on a link a request is sent for a file to a server. That request is made using a particular protocol (format)

called HTTP (Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol). The server checks to see if it has the file, then sends back a

block of information plus the file. That extra block of information is the "header" block. It can contain extra information for the browser. By using a http-equiv meta tag, you can sort of fake out the

browser and make it believe it's getting extra information from the server. Only rather than from the server, it's coming from you in the form of a meta tag.

There are a few http-equiv meta tags, but only one that is worth learning about...

http-equiv="refresh"

This refreshes (or reloads) the browser. It can reload with the same page, or with a

different page. It can reload immediately, or after a time

interval. The basic syntax is as follows...

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5;url=http://www.newsite.com/">

5 is the number of seconds to wait before refreshing, and http://www.newsite.com/ is the new URL. This can be a full or relative URL.

What's a full or relative URL?

A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the address of a file on the WWW.

A full URL is the complete address such as:

http://www.pagetutor.com/pagetutor/tables/lesson01.html

A partial, or relative URL is the address relative to another page in the same domain:

lesson01.html tables/lesson01.html /tables/lesson01.html

Other http-equiv meta tags…

Other tags …. expires, pragma, window-target, etc. We'll skip these for a very good reason... they don't work! At best, they'll only work for a very small portion of your

visitors. They're not worth bothering with... trust me.

There are other NAME type meta tags, such as author, copyright, generator, etc, but those aren't really of any use to you either.

The meta tags we've gone over have a solid use, and they work nearly universally. Unless you have a specific need, there is no reason to spend time messing with all the various other meta tags.

Last thing ABOUT META TAGS…

Develop your description and keywords tags

use the robots meta tag only where absolutely necessary (you should really just let the robots do their

thing)use the http-equiv="refresh" meta tag

if you want to re-direct visitors.

Improving your web site ranking

Your document's TITLE is probably the most important criteria in most search engine rankings.

Choose it carefully. It should contain your most important keywords without being too wordy.


Links. The number of links pointing to your page is of great

significance when search engines rank one site against another.

The idea is that a site with more links pointing to it contains more desirable content. Makes perfect sense.

It's tempting to say the key to getting linked to is to exchange links or get people to link to you. Many people have gone down that "cart before the horse"

path and haven't fared very well. How to get links you ask?? Simple. Have desirable content.

Or to put it another way - HAVE DESIRABLE CONTENT. .


Use ALT attributes in your image tags. Imagine the image was not there.

The ALT attribute is what the search engine sees. If your page is about widgets, and you have a lot of

pictures of widgets, the search engines will miss them all.

Use appropriate ATL attributes such as alt="Red Widget", alt="Super Widget", alt="Widget Accessories", etc.


Submit your sites to the big search engines by hand. Don't use those Super Site Blaster programs and services (the

ones that promise to submit your site to 1000 search engines and directories for $99.95).

Using one of those will accomplish three things... 1) it will make you several dollars lighter 2) you'll be submitted to a bunch of useless or defunct link sites, and

most importantly 3) legitimate search engines might penalize you.

Just hand submit your home page to a half dozen of the bigger search engines.

Their spiders will crawl through your site and index the rest of the pages.


Don't use phony "doorway" pages that load up on keywords and redirect the visitor to your main page.

While this might work sometimes with a few minor search engines, believe that search engine programmers are smart enough to detect those sorts of shenanigans and will likely toss your pages right out of the index.

Your best bet is to remain completely above board and leave the stupid search engine tricks to someone else


Don't use phony "doorway" pages that load up on keywords and redirect the visitor to your main page.

While this might work sometimes with a few minor search engines, believe that search engine programmers are smart enough to detect those sorts of shenanigans and will likely toss your pages right out of the index.

Your best bet is to remain completely above board and leave the stupid search engine tricks to someone else


Promote your site consistently, creatively and responsibly.

DON'T buy one of those CD's full of email addresses and spam three million people.

You won't get much of a response and you might get your ISP or web host a little angry.

Participate in web rings if you wish. Offer something of value for free.

That’s it!

Understand all of it? Let me know if you have questions!

Documents

Meta Tags Web Notes can be found by opening Power Point and going to this file: (H:/OPEN/DALEY/WEB/NOTES/ META TAGS)