Meta Tags - What Are They & Which Search Engines Use Them? By:
Richard Zwicky
Defining Meta Tags is much easier than explaining how they are
used, and by which engines. The reason is very few engines
clearly lay out what they do and do not look at, and how much
emphasis they put on any one factor. So, we’ll start with the
easy part
Meta Tags are lines of HTML code embedded into web pages that
are used by search engines to store information about your site.
These "tags" contain keywords, descriptions, copyright
information, site titles and more. They are among the numerous
things that the search engines look for, when trying to evaluate
a web site.
Meta Tags are not "required" when you're creating web pages.
Unfortunately, many web site operators who don’t use them are
left wondering why the saying "If I build it they will come"
didn’t apply to their site.
There’s also a few naysayers in the search engine optimization
industry who claim that Meta Tags are useless. You can believe
them if you 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 spiders will visit your site, and attempt
to index it. Each search engine operates slightly differently,
and each one weighs different elements of a web site according
to their own proprietary algorithms. For example, Altavista
places an emphasis on the description tag and Inktomi states on
their web site that;
Inktomi "(...) indexes both the full text of the Web page you
submit as well as the meta-tags within the site's HTML." Other
search engines like Exactseek are true meta tag search engines
which clearly state their policy:
"Your site will not be added if it does not have Title and Meta
Description tags." They also use the keywords tag.
Of course, not all search engines work this way. Some place
their emphasis on content. The search engines have over 100
individual factors they look at when reviewing a web site. Some
of these factors deal with page structure. They check to see
that all the 't's are crossed, and the 'i's dotted. They note
sites that have omitted basic steps, like missing tags.
One reason so many engines de-emphasized the meta-keyword tag
had to do with spam. There was a time when 'search engine
promotion specialists' would cram keywords tags full of
irrelevant information. The web site would be selling garbage
cans, but the keywords tags were chock full of irrelevant terms
like "mp3" or "Britney Spears". They figured that if enough
people visited their site, some would buy.
So today, to avoid and penalize this kind of abuse, some search
engines don’t specifically use the keywords tag as part of the
scoring of a site, but they monitor the keywords to ensure they
match the content in the site. The reasoning being that, if the
tags are irrelevant, they must have an alternate purpose. Is it
a spam site? When keywords tags are completely irrelevant to the
content, some search engines, that don’t specifically use
keywords tags, will penalize that web site.
Even for those engines that have downplayed the value of Meta
Tags, there are situations where Meta Tags gain considerably in
importance, e.g. sites with rich graphics, but poor textual
content. Unfortunately, a picture is worth 1000 words to you and
me, but zero to a search engine. If a site has poor textual
content, the engines will be more dependent than ever on the
Meta Tags to properly categorize it.
Even if you ensure you have completely relevant Meta Tags, some
search engines will still ignore them. But better they ignore
them, than they ignore your whole site because they suspect
something is less than above board. Never hope that having Meta
Tags will make the difference in all the search engines; nothing
is a substitute for good content. But in cases where the engine
depends on that content, it may be the only thing that does work
for your site.
So How To Use The Meta Tags? Meta tags should always be placed
in the <head> area of an HTML document. This starts just after
the <html> tag, and ends immediately before the <body> tag.
Here’s how the most basic set should look:
<title>Search Engine Optimization Software - Metamend< itle>
<meta name="description" content="Metamend search engine
optimization ...."> <meta name="keywords" content="search engine
optimization marketing promotion software ..."> <meta
name="robots" content="index,follow"> Always make sure that your
meta tags do not have any line breaks, otherwise the search
engines will just see bad code and ignore them. You should also
avoid use of capitals in your code (html5 standard) as well as
repetition of terms within the keywords tag.
What Goes Into a Meta Tag? For the Description tag: <meta
name="description" content="a description of that specific web
page">; Many search engines will display this summary along with
the title of your page in their search results. Keep this
reasonably short, concise and to the point, but make sure that
it’s an appropriate reflection of your site content.
For the keyword tag; <meta name="keywords" content="a list of
key words or terms about the page">
Keywords represent the key terms that someone might enter into a
search engine. Choose only relevant keywords. If the terms are
going to appear in your keywords tag, they must appear in the
content of your site, or be a synonym to a term on your site.
Most search engines compare your meta content with what is
actually on your page, and if it doesn’t match, your web site
can get penalized, and suffer in search results.
for the Robots tag <meta name="robots"
content="index,follow">;Many web pages have this tag wrong. An
example of the wrong usage is content="index, follow, all" -
wrong because some spiders can't handle spaces between the words
in the tag or the word "all". Most engines by default assume
that you want a web page to be indexed and links followed, so
using the wrong syntax can actually result in the spider coming
to the wrong conclusion and penalizing, or worse, ignoring the
page outright. If by chance you do not want your links followed,
or the page not indexed, then you would substitute "noindex" and
or "nofollow" into the tag.
With the Internet growing at a rate of over 8,000,000 new pages
per day, and the search engines adding a fraction of that
number, Meta Tags are a common standard which can reasonably
ensure a measure of proper categorization for a web site. So,
always ensure that you cover all the bases, and use completely
relevant terms in properly structured Meta Tags. Using tags
properly will pay dividends in the short and long term. After
all, using them properly only helps the search engines, which
means they will send you more qualified traffic - customers.
About the author:
Richard Zwicky is a founder and the CEO of Metamend Software &
Design Ltd., www.metamend.com, a Victoria B.C. based firm whose
cutting edge Search Engine Optimization software is recognized
as the world leader in its field. Employing a staff of 10, the
firm's business comes from around the world, with clients from
every continent. Most recently the company was recognized for
their geo-locational, or GIS, along with their phraseological
and context sensitive search technologies.
