Meta-tags explained

One of the simplest techniques for improving your search engine position must be the use of meta-tags. The methodology is simple, place keywords and descriptions that are hidden from the human visitor inside <Tags> within the head section of your pages html and when the robots (aka spiders) arrive at your web site they can extract the meta-tag information and use it in their database

Not all search engines read meta-tags

Some search engines ignore meta-tags altogether and those that do pay attention to them don't give very much weight to what is found in these tags. However, Inktomi does read read them and as this is becoming a more important engine in 2004 it is well worth taking the time to craft traffic winning meta tags.

Search engines that ignore meta-tags use other methods of evaluation such as link popularity, keyword density and keyword proximity to name just a few of the other ranking parameters

Although there's been a decline in the use of meta-tags as a means of establishing search engine rank, there clearly is a continued use by some of the major search engines. Apart from Inktomi, which has all ready been mentioned, others that still use meta-tags are AltaVista, HotBot, InfoSeek, Lycos, Northern Light, WebCrawler

Meta-tag syntax

The following is a list of meta-tags that can be used in your pages

<META Name="keywords" content="This is where you list all of the keywords that pertain to your site. Make sure there is a comma between each word or phrase and don't repeat them more than 3 times">

<META Name="description" content="This is where you put the description of your site. Put some vital keywords here, but try to keep the description under 15 words. A really great description can mean getting the click through even if you're not number one">

<META Name="author" content="You could put your name or your company name here">

<META Name="owner" content="You could put your e-mail address here, but then you'd get spammed">

<META http-equiv="charset" content="ISO-8859-1"> (Used to inform the browser what character set it needs to read your web page)

<META http-equiv="expires" content=""> (Leave this blank to tell the spider not to remove your listing after x amount of time)

<META Name="rating" content="General"> (Use it to tell search robots what the nature of your web site is e.g. general or adult content)

<META http-equiv="content-language" content="English"> (Tells the robot what language your site is in)

<META http-equiv="VW96.OBJECT TYPE" content="Document"> (You have several choices, but the default is document)

<META Name="revisit-after" content="3 weeks"> (This tells the robot to revisit your site in x amount of weeks. You can't tell a search engine what to do and when to do it , so this tag is useless)

<META Name="robots" content="index,follow"> (Tells the spider to index that page and follow any links. If you don't want the robot to index your page or follow any links then replace "index,follow" with "noindex,nofollow")

It's not necessary for you to use all the above tags in your page, in fact for search engine optimisation purposes you'd be better of just using the meta-description and meta-keyword tags as the rest could be looked on as noise by search engine robots, as they don't read all the meta-tags. What extra tags you use really depends on your site, if for example you were an author or your name was something people were likely to search on, then including the meta-author tag would be worthwhile

The problem with meta-tags

The problem with meta-tags began when web site promoters started to abuse the system as a way to get a higher search engine rank. Search engines are constantly 'spammed' by webmasters inserting keywords into the meta-tags that are not remotely related to their web site, and more often than not repeating those words over and over again. This is a mistake a lot of people new to SEO make. You want lots of people to come to your site, so not understanding the finer points of search engine optimisation, you think why not use some of the webs most frequently searched for words as my keywords

The problem with using non related keywords is that search engines will penalise you for using meta-keywords that are not relevant to your site. For example, using the keyword 'mp3', which consistently ranks in the top ten of all searched words, into your keyword meta-tag when your site doesn't mention the word mp3 and is not remotely related, could get your site listed as a 'spammer'. The reason search engines take this punitive action is that it's strongly in their interest to serve up accurate results to their visitors, hoping that the searcher will consider their search engine the next time they do a search. In this example having a person looking for mp3 sites and then being led to an unrelated site would tend to tarnish the searchers perception of that particular search engine.

Keyword spamming isn't just a problem for search engine companies, but also to the web site owner. Most sites have a targeted audience that they should be attracting, getting people to your site by the act of duplicity, when they show no indication of being interested in your type of web site serves no productive purpose except consuming server bandwidth and frustrating misled visitors

How many words should I use in my meta-tags

Every search engine has it's own particular limits when it comes to the amount of meta-tags you can include. This doesn't mean you have to meet them, it's just the maximum amount they'll read. As a rule the more compact you make your meta-tags the better. Try to use a maximum of 2 - 3 key phrases or around 10 keywords in the meta-keyword tag. Remember that any meta keywords you use should also be included in your page text to avoid the search engines thinking you are trying to spam them. When it comes to the meta-description tag, keep your descriptions short and to the point. The aim of this tag is to invite people into your site, so think of it from a visitors point of view and write a description that can pre-sell your products or services, a good description can mean getting the click-thru even if you don't have a first place ranking in the search engines

using meta - keywords