| Defining Meta Tags is much easier than explaining how they are used, and by which search engines.The reason is very few search engines clearly lay out what they do anddo not look at, and how much emphasis they put on any one factor. So,we’ll start with the easy part. MetaTags are lines of HTML code embedded into web pages that are used bysearch engines to store information about your web site. These "tags"contain keywords, descriptions, copyright information, web site titlesand more. They are among the numerous things that the search engines look for, when trying to evaluate a web site.
MetaTags are not "required" when you're creating web pages. Unfortunately,many of the web site operators who didn’t use them are left wonderingwhy the saying “If I build it they will come” didn’t apply to theirsite.
There’s also a few naysayers in the search engine optimizationindustry who claim that Meta Tags are useless. You can believe them ifyou like, but you would be wise not to. While not technically"required", Meta Tags are essential.
If you simply create a web site and register the URL with the search engines, their spiderswill visit your site, and attempt to index it. Each search engineoperates slightly differently, and each one weights different elementsof a web site according to their own proprietary algorithms. Forexample, Altavista places an emphasis on the description tag and Inktomi states on their web site that; “Insteadof trying to determine which specific keywords are relevant to a Webpage, Surelist, (Inktomi’s Pay for Inclusion program), indexes both thefull text of the Web page you submit as well as the meta-tags withinthe site's HTML. (...) If the keyword is near the top of the page, in aheadline or title, in the meta-tags in the site's HTML and/or appearsfrequently on the page, your site will appear sorted higher in thesearch results.” Other search engines like Exactseek are true meta tag search engines which clearly state their policy: “Yoursite will not be added if it does not have Title and Meta Descriptiontags.” They also use the keywords tag. Ofcourse, not all search engines work this way. Some, place theiremphasis on content. The search engines have over 100 individualfactors they look at when reviewing a web site. Some of these factorsdeal with page structure. They check to see that all the ‘t’s arecrossed, and the ‘i’s dotted. They note sites that have omitted basicsteps, like missing tags
One reason so many enginesde-emphasized the meta-keyword tag had to do with spam. There was atime when ‘search engine promotion specialists’ would cram keywordstags full of irrelevant information. The web site would be sellinggarbage cans, but the keywords tags were chock full of irrelevant termslike “mp3” or “Britney Spears” in their tags. They figured that ifenough people visited their site, some would buy.
So today, toavoid and penalize this kind of abuse, some search engines don’tspecifically use the keywords tag as part of the scoring of a site, butthey monitor them to ensure they match the content in the site. Thereasoning being that if the tags areirrelevant, what is their purpose? Is it a spam site? When keywordstags are completely irrelevant to the content, some search engineswhich don’t specifically use keywords tags will penalize the web sitewith the search results.
Even within the search engines thathave downplayed the importance of Meta Tags, there are situations whereMeta Tags gain considerably in importance: in sites with rich graphics,but poor textual content. Unfortunately, a picture is worth 1000 wordsto you and me, but zero to a search engine. If a site has poor textualcontent, the engines will be more dependent than ever on the Meta Tagsto properly categorize it.
Even if you ensure you havecompletely relevant Meta Tags, some search engines will still ignorethem. But better they ignore them, than they ignore your whole sitebecause they suspect something is less than above board. Never hopethat having Meta Tags will make the difference in all the searchengines; nothing is a substitute for good content. But in cases wherethe engine depends on that content, it may be the only thing that doeswork for your site. So how to use the Meta Tags? Metatags should always be placed in the area of an HTML document. Thisstarts just after the tag, and ends immediately before the tag. Here’show the most basic set should look;
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Alwaysmake sure that each tag does not include any line breaks, otherwise thesearch engines will ignore them – they will just see bad code andignore it. Note that there should be no capitals used in the code,(html5 standard). Also, repetition of terms within the keywords tagshould be avoided.
What Goes Into a Meta Tag? Manysearch engines will display this summary along with the title of yourpage in their search results. Keep this reasonably short, concise andto the point, but make sure that it’s an appropriate reflection of thecontents.
Keywords represent the key points that someone mightenter into a search engine. Choose only relevant keywords. If the termsare going to appear in your keywords tag, they must appear in thecontent of your site, or be a synonym to a term on your site. Mostsearch engines compare your meta content with what is actually on yourpage, if it doesn’t match, your web site can get penalized, and sufferin search results.
Many web pages have this tag wrong. Anexample of the wrong usage is content=”index, follow, all” - Mostengines by default assume that you want a web page to be indexed andlinks followed, so using the wrong syntax can actually result in thespider coming to the wrong conclusion and penalizing, or worse,ignoring the page outright. If by chance you do not want your linksfollowed, or the page not indexed, then you would substitute “noindex”and or “nofollow” into the tag. The Real Value of Meta Tags With the Internet growingat a rate of over 8,000,000 new pages per day, and the search enginesadding a fraction of that number, Meta Tags are a common standard whichcan reasonably ensure a measure of proper categorization for a website. So, when considering how you are marketing your business with your web site, and your search engine strategies,always ensure that you cover all the bases, and use completely relevantterms in properly structured Meta Tags. Using tags properly will paydividends in the short and long term. After all, using them properlyonly helps the search engines, which means they will send you morequalified traffic - customers |
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