Meta Tags
Frames And Meta Tags?
Meta tags are a big debate among web designers. Some suggest ignoring them,
some suggest careful attention to them, and others seem to fit somewhere between
these two extremes. My opinion is that unless you plan to pay for search engine
listings or ignore search engines altogether, using Meta tags can and will
enhance your listing and ranking in most search engines and aid your prospective
viewers in finding your site.
There are a lot of web designer sites that have great information on Meta
tags but I will add my two-cents to the mix.
META Tags
Meta tags are still very important. Google claims not to use them but a lot
of the other engines do and Google appears to use your description and keywords
as an aide in classifying and indexing your page content. The following tags are
highly recommended for all sites:
Description (Limit to 150 characters, including spaces)
This Meta tag should follow the page title tag. Include a brief, terse
description of the page - not the site - unless this is the home page or
starting frameset. Use compete sentences because this will be what viewers read
about this page when found by a search engine. Phrases can be used but be sure
they fully explain what’s on the page to someone that may be unfamiliar with
the topic.
Keywords (Limit to 800 characters, including spaces)
This is a very important tag. Take the time to generate the keywords appropriate
for the page. Again, if this is a home page or starting frameset, use keywords
and phrases that describe your site; however, the keywords and phrases must
appear at least once in the page’s content and preferably in the first couple
sentences of the first paragraph.
Create a list of keywords specifically for the page. Read the page’s
content and try to create some keywords and phrases used on the page. Keywords
must be page specific not site specific to be of any value. If necessary,
rewrite the first paragraph of the page to include your best keywords and
phrases. Don’t try spamming the engine with invisible text or text the same
color as the background. Also, don’t use your best keywords and phrase more
than two or three times in a single sentence or paragraph. Most engines are
aware of these types of tricks and most will refuse to list the entire site not
just the offending page.
Here is a fairly complete list of Meta tags. Only the ones describe above are
extremely important.
<title>Your Page Title Here</title>
<meta name="description" content="You description here">
<meta name="keywords" content="word,words,keywords
here,"> Spaces only between phrase words
<meta http-equiv="pragma" content="no-cache"> To
prevent engines from caching pages.
<meta name="author" content="author’s
name">Optional
<meta name="copyright" content="author’s
name">Optional
<meta name="language" content="English"> Should be
included
<meta name="charset" content="ISO-8859-1"> Highly
suggested
<meta name="distribution" content="Global">
Optional
<meta name="rating" content="General">Change to
Adult if an adult site.
<meta name="expires" content="Never">Optional
<meta name="robots" content="Index, Follow">See
following robot tag description.
<meta name="revisit-after" content="30
Days">Optional - (Most search engines revist according to their
schedule - not yours.)
Robots Meta Tag Contents
Use the following robot contents. Combined them for additional effects.
Index, Follow
Index, NoFollow
NoIndex, Follow
NoIndex, NoFollow
Some engines will recognize the ALL and NONE content for the Robot Meta tag.
ALL is the same as: Index, Follow.
NONE is the same as: NoIndex, NoFollow
After checking the Meta tags on all your pages, be sure to review the Search
Engines and Frames article.
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