Want to get a top ranking in search engines?
No problem! All you need to do is add a few magical "meta tags" to your web pages, and you'll skyrocket to the top of the listings.
If only it were so easy. Let's make it clear: Meta tags are not a magic solution.
Meta tags have never been a guaranteed way to gain a top ranking on crawler-based search engines. Today, the most valuable feature they offer the web site owner is the ability to control to some degree how their web pages are described by some search engines. They also offer the ability to prevent pages from being indexed at all. This page explores these and other meta tag-related features in more depth.
Meta Tag Overview
What are meta tags? They are information inserted into the "head" area of your web pages. Other than the title tag (explained below), information in the head area of your web pages is not seen by those viewing your pages in browsers. Instead, meta information in this area is used to communicate information that a human visitor may not be concerned with. Meta tags, for example, can tell a browser what "character set" to use or whether a web page has self-rated itself in terms of adult content.
Let's review two common types of meta tags, and then we'll discuss exactly how they are used in more depth:Want to get a top ranking in search engines? No problem! All you need to do is add a few magical "meta tags" to your web pages, and you'll skyrocket to the top of the listings.
If only it were so easy. Let's make it clear: Meta tags are nowhere near a magical solution to the aim but form a good base for search engine recognition .
Meta tags have never been a guaranteed way to gain a top ranking on crawler-based search engines. Today, the most valuable feature they offer the web site owner is the ability to control to some degree how their web pages are described by some search engines. They also offer the ability to prevent pages from being indexed at all. This page explores these and other meta tag-related features in more depth.
In the example to the left, you can see the beginning of the page's "head" area as noted by the HEAD tag -- it ends at the portion shown as /HEAD.
Meta tags go in between the "opening" and "closing" HEAD tags. Shown in the example is a TITLE tag, then a META DESCRIPTION tag, then a META KEYWORDS tag.
If only it were so easy. Let's make it clear: Meta tags are not a magic solution.
Meta tags have never been a guaranteed way to gain a top ranking on crawler-based search engines. Today, the most valuable feature they offer the web site owner is the ability to control to some degree how their web pages are described by some search engines. They also offer the ability to prevent pages from being indexed at all. This page explores these and other meta tag-related features in more depth.
Meta Tag Overview
What are meta tags? They are information inserted into the "head" area of your web pages. Other than the title tag (explained below), information in the head area of your web pages is not seen by those viewing your pages in browsers. Instead, meta information in this area is used to communicate information that a human visitor may not be concerned with. Meta tags, for example, can tell a browser what "character set" to use or whether a web page has self-rated itself in terms of adult content.
Let's review two common types of meta tags, and then we'll discuss exactly how they are used in more depth:Want to get a top ranking in search engines? No problem! All you need to do is add a few magical "meta tags" to your web pages, and you'll skyrocket to the top of the listings.
If only it were so easy. Let's make it clear: Meta tags are nowhere near a magical solution to the aim but form a good base for search engine recognition .
Meta tags have never been a guaranteed way to gain a top ranking on crawler-based search engines. Today, the most valuable feature they offer the web site owner is the ability to control to some degree how their web pages are described by some search engines. They also offer the ability to prevent pages from being indexed at all. This page explores these and other meta tag-related features in more depth.
In the example to the left, you can see the beginning of the page's "head" area as noted by the HEAD tag -- it ends at the portion shown as /HEAD.Meta tags go in between the "opening" and "closing" HEAD tags. Shown in the example is a TITLE tag, then a META DESCRIPTION tag, then a META KEYWORDS tag.
The Title Tag
The HTML title tag isn't really a meta tag, but it's worth discussing in relation to them. Whatever text you place in the title tag (between the TITLE and /TITLE portions as shown in the example) will appear in the reverse bar of someone's browser when they view the web page. For instance, within the title tag of this page that you are reading is this text:
How To Use HTML Meta Tags
If you look at the reverse bar in your browser, then you should see that text being used, similar to this:
Some browsers also supplement whatever you put in the title tag by adding their own name, as Microsoft Internet Explorer is doing in the graphic in the left hand screen shot. The title tag text is also used to describe your page when someone adds it to their "Favorites" or "Bookmarks" lists. For instance, if you added this page to your Favorites in Internet Explorer, it would show up like this:
Meta Robots Tag
One other meta tag worth mentioning is the robots tag. This lets you specify that a particular page should not be indexed by a search engine. To keep spiders out, simply add this text between your head tags on each page that you don't want indexed. The format is shown the graphic Example in the lower left hand side: (Meta Robots Tag)
You do not need to use variations of the meta robots tag to help your pages get indexed. They are unnecessary. By default, a crawler will try to index all your web pages and will try to follow links from one page to another.
The HTML title tag isn't really a meta tag, but it's worth discussing in relation to them. Whatever text you place in the title tag (between the TITLE and /TITLE portions as shown in the example) will appear in the reverse bar of someone's browser when they view the web page. For instance, within the title tag of this page that you are reading is this text:
How To Use HTML Meta Tags
If you look at the reverse bar in your browser, then you should see that text being used, similar to this:
Some browsers also supplement whatever you put in the title tag by adding their own name, as Microsoft Internet Explorer is doing in the graphic in the left hand screen shot. The title tag text is also used to describe your page when someone adds it to their "Favorites" or "Bookmarks" lists. For instance, if you added this page to your Favorites in Internet Explorer, it would show up like this:
Meta Robots TagOne other meta tag worth mentioning is the robots tag. This lets you specify that a particular page should not be indexed by a search engine. To keep spiders out, simply add this text between your head tags on each page that you don't want indexed. The format is shown the graphic Example in the lower left hand side: (Meta Robots Tag)
You do not need to use variations of the meta robots tag to help your pages get indexed. They are unnecessary. By default, a crawler will try to index all your web pages and will try to follow links from one page to another.More on Meta Tagging to come See you all again soon Til then..................
No comments:
Post a Comment