The Top Meta Tags and the Title Tag

There are dozens of Meta Tags that are in use on the web today, however most have little or no real value. Below are what we consider the top Meta Tags and their proper use. We also included the Title Tag, even though it is not technically a Meta Tag it is one of the most important tags you will use on your Web page. Meta Tags should ALWAYS be placed directly below the <title> tag on you Web page. Search engines will ignore them if placed elsewhere.

The Title Tag

The <title> tag is the most important HTML tag on your Web page. It is used by every major search engine on the Web today. This tag provides searchable data to the search engines, and is usually displayed on the search results page. The few words you place in your title should describe your product or service. Do not waste characters by including your domain name unless it contains key words. 70 Characters.

<title>KD Web Page Design: HTML/CSS Tutorials: Important Meta Tags</title>

The Description Meta Tag

The Description Meta Tag is almost as important as the Title Tag, and is used with the Title Tag in major search engines. This tag should be a short concise description of the content of your Web page. It should, like the Title Tag be considered as an advertisement for your site. 200 Characters.

<meta name="description" content="Web page design for family, business and nonprofit. Web page design for eBay sellers store design, template design, auction listing templates. PayPal Shopping Cart sites.">

The Keywords Meta Tag

The Keywords Meta Tag allows you to list words that are relevant to your Web page. The keywords can be separated by either a space or a comma. This tag is widely abused and search engines will give your site a much lower rating if you include non relevant keywords. Use words that are relevant to the current page. 250 Characters, 20 Keywords.

<meta name="keywords" content="web page design web design tutorials HTML CSS auction listing creator paypal shopping cart sites ebay store listing auction templates design ebay business family ebay template">

The Author Meta Tag

The Author Meta Tag credits the author of the Web page.

<meta name="author" content="Ken and Diane Clark">

The Copyright Meta Tag

The Copyright Meta Tag is used to designate copyright information for the current page.

<meta name="copyright" content="2006 www.kdwebpagedesign.com">

The Robots Meta Tag and robots.txt File

The Robots Meta Tag is used to control how search engines spider your site. Most sites contain directories and pages that should not be indexed by the search engines. Administrative pages or databases are just two examples. The robots.txt file will tell the search engine spider to ignore them. You will need to include the robots.txt file as well as adding the meta tag. There are six directives that can be passed and they are described below.

all: Designates that page should be indexed and all links should be followed.
none: Designates that page should not be index and links should not be followed.
index: Designates that page should be indexed.
noindex: Designates that page should not be indexed.
follow: Designates links should be followed.
nofollow: Designates links should not be followed.

<meta name="robots" content="index,follow">

The sample below specifies that the robots should ignore /img/, /login.asp and /privacy/privacy.asp. The asterisk * is a wildcard - so all robots should ignore the directories and files listed below it. If you only wanted Googlebot to ignore those directories and files, you would type "User-agent: Googlebot". The robots.txt file MUST be in your root directory and saved with the .txt file extension.

User-agent: *
Disallow: /img/
Disallow: /login.asp
Disallow: /privacy/privacy.asp

The Revisit-After Meta Tag

The Revisit-After Meta Tag tells search engine spiders how often they should return to your page to re-index. This tag is highly recommended if you change your content regularly. It can also help your ratings with search engines that rate sites according to submission date.

<meta name="revisit-after" content="7 days">

The Distribution Meta Tag

The Distribution Meta Tag is used to designate the intended distribution for the current page. Valid settings are Global, Local or IU which stands for "Internal Use". Unless you wish to restrict your audience either set this tag to global or do not include it.

<meta name="distribution" content="global">

The Language Meta Tag

The Language Meta Tag is used to designate the language that the current page is written in. The language is specified by a two or three character code.

<meta name="language" content="en">

The Expires Meta Tag

The Expires Meta Tag defines the expiration date and time of the page being indexed. If your Web page is running a limited time event or there is a preset date when your page will no longer be valid, you should include the expires tag to indicate to search engines when to delete your page from their database. The expires tag is commonly used in conjunction with the revisit meta tag as a means to get search engines to re-visit a Web site every few days. Date must be in the format shown below.

<meta name="expires" content="Wed, 7 Mar 2006 15:52:37 GMT">

The No-Cache Meta Tag

The No-Cache Meta Tag is used when you want to stop your visitors browser from caching your Web page. This is useful if your site content changes constantly and you want to ensure your visitors see the most current version of your page. For compatibility across more browsers we suggest using both of the tags listed below.

<meta http-equiv="pragma" content="no-cache">
<meta http-equiv="cache-control" content="no-cache">

The http-equiv Meta Tag

The HTTP-equiv Meta Tag is used to set the character set for the document. The example below is for a typical HTML document.

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">

The MSSmartTagsPreventParsing Meta Tag

If you don't want Microsoft products to automatically generate smart tags on your web pages, then simply include this tag. It must be included on each page of your site for which you do not desire this feature. It has no effect on smart tags which you insert yourself.

<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="true">

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