Want top search engine rankings? Just add meta tags and your website will magically rise to the top, right? Wrong. Meta tags are one piece in a large algorithmic puzzle that major search engines look at when deciding which results are relevant to show users who have typed in a search query.
While there is still some
debate about which meta tags remain useful and important to search engines,
meta tags definitely aren't a magic solution to gaining rankings in Google,
Bing, Yahoo, or elsewhere – so let's kill that myth right at the outset.
However, Meta tags help tell search engines and users what your site is about,
and when Meta tags are implemented incorrectly, the negative impact can be
substantial and heart breaking.
Let's look at what meta tags
are, what meta tags matter, and how to avoid mistakes when implementing meta
tags on your website.
What Are Meta Tags?
HTML meta tags are officially
page data tags that lie between the open and closing head tags in the HTML code
of a document.
The text in these tags is not
displayed, but parsable and tells the browsers (or other web services) specific
information about the page. Simply, it “explains” the page so a browser can
understand it.
Here's a code example of meta
tags:
<head>
<title>Not a Meta Tag,
but required anyway</title>
<meta
name="description" content="Awesome Description Here">
<meta
http-equiv="content-type"
content="text/html;charset=UTF-8">
</head>
The Title Tag
Although the title tag appears
in the head block of the page, it isn't actually a meta tag. What's the
difference? The title tag is a required page “element” according to the W3C.
Meta tags are optional page descriptors.
The Description Meta Tag
This is what the description
tag looks like:
<meta
name="description" content="Awesome Description Here">
Ideally, your description
should be no longer than 155 characters (including spaces). However, check the
search engine results page (SERP) of choice to confirm this. Some are longer
and some are shorter. This is only a rule of thumb, not a definite “best
practice” anymore.
The “description” meta tag
helps websites in three important ways:
- “Description” tells the search engine what your page or site is about: For the search engine to understand what your page is about, you need to write a good description. When Google's algorithm decides a description is badly written or inaccurate, it will replace that description with its own version of what is on the page. Wouldn't you prefer to describe your site to potential customers or visitors using your own words rather than leaving it in Google's artificial hands? Look at this example and judge for yourself:
- “Description” helps with click through rates to your site: Writing a good description not only helps keep Google from rewriting it, but also helps you get good more people clicking through to your site. A well-written description not only tells users what is on your page, but also entices them to visit your site. A description is what shows up here in the search engine results. It is like good window dressing. Sites with poor descriptions will get less click throughs and the search engines will demote your site in favor of other sites.
- “Description” helps with site rankings: The common belief (based on what Google said in 2009) is that nothing in the description will help you get rankings. However, I have seen evidence to the contrary. Is it heavily weighted? No, but if you want some value on a secondary keyword (say an –ing –ed or –s), use it here.
Two other quick notes on meta
description tags:
Empty Descriptions: Can a description be empty? Yes. When
it is empty Google and Bing will fill it in for you. In fact, sometimes (e.g.,
for blogs) you may prefer Google's or Bing's version. (Personally though, I
always fill it in whenever possible, preferring my version to theirs, but if
you have a small staff, this isn't always practical.)
Quotes: Don't use full quotation marks (“”) in your
description. It will likely cut off your description. Use single quotes to
avoid this issue.
The Keywords Meta Tag
This is what the keywords tag looks like:
<meta name = "keywords" content = "keywords go here">
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, the “keywords” meta tag was a critical element for early search engines. Much like the dinosaurs, this tag is a fossil from ancient search engine times.
This is what the keywords tag looks like:
<meta name = "keywords" content = "keywords go here">
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, the “keywords” meta tag was a critical element for early search engines. Much like the dinosaurs, this tag is a fossil from ancient search engine times.
The only search engine that
looks at the keywords anymore is Microsoft's Bing – and they use it to help
detect spam. To avoid hurting your site, your best option is to never add this
tag.
Or, if that's too radical for
you to stomach, at least make sure you haven't stuffed 300 keywords in the
hopes of higher search rankings. It won't work. Sorry.
If you already have keyword
meta tags on your website, but they aren't spam my, there's no reason to spend
the next week hurriedly taking them out. It's OK to leave them for now – just
take them out as you're able, to reduce page weight and load times.
Meta Tags Google Advice
Googlebot: noarchive
This tag will not allow Google to display any cached content. To place the googlebot: noarchive into your web page, use the following:
<meta name="googlebot" content="noarchive">
Googlebot: nosnippet
This tag will not allow Google to display excerpted text in the SERPs or cached content. To place the googlebot: nosnippet into your web page, use the following:
<meta name="googlebot" content="nosnippet">
Googlebot: noindex
This tag is similar to the robots Meta element that denies indexing of your web page. To use the googlebot: noindex on your web page, use the following:
<meta name="googlebot" content="noindex">
Googlebot: nofollow
With the use of this tag it will instruct Google not to pass any PageRank or link popularity to the link served. However, Googlebot may follow the web page link and index the page referenced. To use the googlebot: nofollow tag on your web page, use the following:
<meta name="googlebot" content="nofollow">
Googlebot: noodp
To prevent all search engines (that support the meta tag) from using this information for the page's description, use the following:
One source Google uses to generate snippets is the Open Directory Project. You can direct us not to use this as a source by adding a meta tag to your pages.
<meta name="robots" content="NOODP">
To specifically prevent Google from using this information for a page's description, use the following:
<meta name="googlebot" content="NOODP">
If you use the robots meta tag for other directives, you can combine those. For instance:
<meta name="googlebot" content="NOODP, nofollow">
Meta Author
The Meta Author tag will display the author of the document. This Meta tag will reference the name of the person who developed the HTML/XML document being viewed. If you use the Meta Author tag, it is recommended to use it with the author's first and last name. It is not recommended to have the inclusion of the author's email address due to the proliferation of Spam. If the author would like to be contacted, it is advised to include a contact form on a HTML page instead.
Example of a Meta Author tag:
<META NAME="Author" CONTENT="George Costanza, gcostanza@vandalayindustries.com">
Recommendation of Meta Author tag:The use of the Meta Author tag is optional. If you have several individuals contributing to the content of your site, include this tag for assistance in tracking the author. The Meta Author tag is not indexed by Google, Yahoo!, or Bing. While it will not assist you in search engine rankings, it is recognized as part of the "Meta Tag Standard."
Meta Content Language
The Meta Content Language tag declares the natural language of the document. This is also known as the Meta Name Language. Robots use this tag to categorize the language of the web page.
Example of a Meta Content Language tag:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Language" CONTENT="en-GB">
Example of a Meta Content Language tag: It is advised only to use the Meta Content Language tag if your website is written in non-US English. To date we have not tested this tag, but we have had reports from our members that it does assist non-US English sites in getting categorized properly by the search engines.
Meta Content Script Type
The Meta Content Script Type tag is used to specify the default scripting language of the document.
Example of a Meta Content Script Type:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Script-Type" CONTENT="text/javascript">
Recommendations for Meta Content Script Type: It is advised not to use the Meta Content Script Type tag. Search engines do not need this tag to detect scripts as they do this on their own. Browsers do not use this tag either, as they have other detection methods in place.
Meta Content Style Type
The Meta Content Style Type is used to specify the default Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) language for the documents.
Example of a Meta Content Style Type tag:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Style-Type" CONTENT="text/css">
Recommendations for Meta Content Style Type tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Content Style Type tag. Search engines do not need to know the style sheet of a document. Web browsers also do not look to the Meta tags for style sheet information.
Meta Content Type
Used to declare the character set.
The Meta Content Type tag is used to declare the character set of a website. It has become recommended to always use the Meta Content Type tag even if you use a DTD declaration above the Header. If you fail to do so, it may cause display problems. For instance, the document may use UTF-8 punctuation characters but is displayed in ISO or ASCII character sets. There are other benefits to using the Meta Content Type tag. Simply subscribe to our SEO Revolution Newsletter (nominal fee membership) to get the entire scoop of what the Meta Content Type tag can do for your site
Example of a Meta Content Type tag:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
Recommendations of a Meta Content Type tag: It is recommended to always use the Meta Content Type tag along with the DTD declaration format by the World Wide Web Consortium. If you fail to do so, you may cause display problems. For example, the Meta Content Type tag helps properly display the page if the document uses UTF-8 punctuation characters, but is displayed in ISO or ASCII character sets. There are many benefits to using the Meta Content Type tag. To get the entire scoop on the Meta Content Type tags, become a paid member and subscribe to our SEO Revolution Newsletter.
Meta Copyright
The Meta Copyright tag is used to include a copyright, trademark, patent, or other information that pertains to intellectual property.
Example of a Meta Copyright tag:
<meta name="copyright" content="Copyright 2008">
Recommendations for a Meta Copyright tag: It is not required to use a Meta Copyright tag. Please be aware that the Meta Copyright tag will not protect your site's content or your intellectual property. Consult your attorney to ensure you are protected properly.
Meta Designer
The Meta Designer tag is used to declare the designer of the website.
Example of a Meta Designer tag:
<META NAME="Designer" CONTENT="Art Vandaley">
Recommendations of the Meta Designer tag: The Meta Designer tag is optional to use. Usually web designers who want advertising or to catch people hijacking their designs use the Meta Designer tag. It should be understood that search engines do not support the Meta Designer tag.
Meta Distribution
The Meta Distribution tag is used to declare the distribution of your web content. The three classifications of distribution are:
Global (the entire web)
Local (reserved for the local IP block of your site)
IU (Internal Use, not for public distribution).
Example of a Meta Distribution tag:
<META NAME="Distribution" CONTENT="Global">
Recommendations for the Meta Distribution tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Distribution tag. If you want to have restricted distribution, use the robots.txt tag or your HTAccess file.
Meta Expires
The Meta Expires tag is used to declare the date and time after which the web document should be considered expired.
Example of the Meta Expires tag:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="expires" CONTENT="Wed, 26 Feb 2004 08:21:57 GMT">
Recommendations for the Meta Expires tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Expires tag. While the Meta Expires tag is good conceptually, it is impractical for search engines. Not only do search engines not read the Meta Expires tag, but according to my testing, browsers ignore it too. Are you looking to stop Google from caching your site? Even if you use the Meta Expires tag Google will cache your page. The Meta Expires tag is worthless; don't bother with it.
Meta Generator
The Meta Generator tag is used to declare the name and version number of the publishing tool used to create the page. Tool vendors use the Meta Generator tag to assess market penetration.
Example of the Meta Generator tag:
<META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="FrontPage 4.0">
Recommendations for Meta Generator tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Generator tag. If you have Meta Generator tags, delete them if possible. Meta Generator tags serve no useful purpose for your pages.
Meta Language
The Meta Language tag is used to declare the language used on the website. Webmasters who wish to declare the primary language of the web page can use the Meta Language tag.
Example of the Meta Language tag:
<META NAME="Language" CONTENT="english">
Recommendation of the Meta Language tag: It is recommended to only use the Meta Language tag for sites in non-US English languages. No testing has been done in other languages to verify that the Meta Language tag does indeed work.
Meta MS Smart Tags
The Meta MS Smart tags were part of a beta test of Internet Explorer and were removed due to negative press and feedback from users. In short, Microsoft would sell keyword phrases, then the Meta MS Smart Tags would allow those keywords to be highlighted on web pages that would take the user to the advertiser's site. This would mean your site could promote your competitor's site without your consent.
Example of a Meta MS Smart tags:
<META NAME="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" CONTENT="TRUE">
Recommendations for Meta MS Smart tags: It is recommended not to use the Meta MS Smart tags. Microsoft discontinued Meta MS Smart tags technology. If you are working with an SEO firm that demands to insert these tags, quickly find a new SEO company.
Meta MSN (No ODP)
The Meta MSN (No ODP) tag is used for your description in the Bing search results instead of the description used in DMOZ.
Example of a Meta MSN (No ODP) tag:
<META Name="msnbot" CONTENT="NOODP">
Recommendation for Meta MSN (No ODP) tag: It is optional to use Meta MSN (No ODP) tag. If you are unhappy with the description from DMOZ, and most Webmasters are, use the Meta MSN (No ODP) tag. While this is only good for BingBot, you can sub "Robots" for "BingBOT" in the Meta MSN (No ODP) tag to be valid for all bots. As of right now, however, Bing is the only search engine using descriptions straight from DMOZ.
Note: Using the Meta MSN (No ODP) tag will not remove the DMOZ listing immediately. It can take up to four weeks.
Meta Pragma No Cache
The Meta Pragma No Cache tag is used to prevent visitors from seeing a cached version of a specific page. The Meta Pragma No Cache tag forces the browser to pull information from the server each time the page is viewed.
Example of the Meta Pragma No Cache tag:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma" CONTENT="no-cache">
Recommendations for the Meta Pragma No Cache tag: The Meta Pragma No Cache tag has no affect on search engines and is mainly implemented with the intent of helping users. For example, if you have a site that changes on a daily basis, the Meta Pragma No Cache tag would ensure that the visitor sees the most recent version of the page.
However, since you are pulling information from the server each time a visitor views the page, the load time will be affected as well as incurring increased server activity.
Google has stated: "The http-equiv values pragma and expires are attempts at bypassing caches without having to set the HTTP headers correctly. These are probably unnecessary uses; any scenario where there is a legitimate reason to limit caching, the author is going to have enough control over the server to send the appropriate headers. In addition, the meta tags can't be considered reliable (e.g. proxies and transparent caches aren't going to honor them)."
In my opinion, it is better to set the HTTP headers correctly. To learn how to do this, view our article (must be an All Access Member of the SEO Revolution).
Meta Publisher:
The Meta Publisher tag is used to declare the name and version number of the publishing tool used to create the page. The Meta Publisher tag is the same as the Meta Generator tag. Tool vendors might use this tag to assess market penetration.
Example of the Meta Publisher tag:
<META NAME="Publisher" CONTENT="FrontPage 4.0">
Recommendations for the Meta Publisher tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Publisher tag. If you have t Meta Publisher tags, delete them if possible. The Meta Publisher tag serves no purpose for your pages.
Meta Rating
The Meta Rating tag is used to display a content rating similar to the movie rating system (i.e. PG-13).
Example of the Meta Rating tag:
There is not a set form of this tag, nor is there any official statement from the W3C. Some sites recommend using this tag. However, these recommendations have no basis in fact as the governing body of HTML has no reference to it. According to our testing, this tag has no merit.
Recommendations for Meta Rating tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Rating tag. The fact that there is not a set form for the Meta Rating tag suggests you would be better off acquiring a rating from the International International Content Rating Association.
Meta Refresh
The Meta Refresh tag is used to specify a delay in seconds before the browser automatically reloads the document or URL specified.
Example of the Meta Refresh tag:
Recommendations for the Meta Refresh tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Refresh tag. Search engines can detect the use of the Meta Refresh tag and they consider it to be Spam. The penalty is either ignoring the page or banning your site completely from the index. You should use a 301 or 302 redirect instead. To get more information on how to do redirects properly, subscribe to our paid membership and check out the SEO Revolution Newsletter archive.
Meta Reply To
The Meta Reply To tag is used to harvest email addresses. The Meta Reply To tag is a Spammers tag. The Meta Reply To tag picks up your email address, then hits you fast and hard with offers-a-plenty.
Example of a Meta Reply To tag:
<meta name="reply-to" content="your.email@address.com" />
Recommendations for the Meta Reply To tag: It is highly recommended not to use the Meta Reply To tag as it is used as a Spamming tool.
Meta Resource Type
The Meta Resource Type tag is used to declare the resource of a page.
Example of a Meta Resource Type tag:
<META name="resource-type" content="document">
Meta Revisit After
The Meta Revisit After tag is used to inform search engines when to return to index your site. It has been stated that the Meta Revisit After tag will boost your site's rankings with search engines that credit fresh pages. This information is false and has no basis.
Example of the Meta Revisit After tag:
<META NAME="Revisit-After" CONTENT="30 days Days">
Recommendations for the Meta Revisit After tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Revisit After tag. Search engines will not obey the Meta Revisit After tag and come back to index your site on their own schedule, not when you inform them.
Meta Set Cookie
The Meta Set Cookie tag is a cookie used to set a cookie in the user's web browser. If you use an expiration date, the cookie is considered permanent and will be saved to disk until it expires. Otherwise it will be considered valid only for the current session and will be erased upon closing the Web browser.
Example of the Meta Set Cookie tag:
Recommendations for the Meta Set Cookie tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Set Cookie tag. While the Meta Set Cookie tag was used years ago to set cookies, cookies can now be set and customized very easily. If you need assistance with cookies, our programming staff can assist you for a nominal fee.
Meta Subject
The Meta Subject tag is used to declare the subject of the web site.
Example of the Meta Subject tag:
<META NAME="Subject" CONTENT="Web Page Subject">
Recommendations of Meta Subject tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Subject tag. No third party agents, including browsers and search engines, support the Meta Subject tag.
Googlebot: noarchive
This tag will not allow Google to display any cached content. To place the googlebot: noarchive into your web page, use the following:
<meta name="googlebot" content="noarchive">
Googlebot: nosnippet
This tag will not allow Google to display excerpted text in the SERPs or cached content. To place the googlebot: nosnippet into your web page, use the following:
<meta name="googlebot" content="nosnippet">
Googlebot: noindex
This tag is similar to the robots Meta element that denies indexing of your web page. To use the googlebot: noindex on your web page, use the following:
<meta name="googlebot" content="noindex">
Googlebot: nofollow
With the use of this tag it will instruct Google not to pass any PageRank or link popularity to the link served. However, Googlebot may follow the web page link and index the page referenced. To use the googlebot: nofollow tag on your web page, use the following:
<meta name="googlebot" content="nofollow">
Googlebot: noodp
To prevent all search engines (that support the meta tag) from using this information for the page's description, use the following:
One source Google uses to generate snippets is the Open Directory Project. You can direct us not to use this as a source by adding a meta tag to your pages.
<meta name="robots" content="NOODP">
To specifically prevent Google from using this information for a page's description, use the following:
<meta name="googlebot" content="NOODP">
If you use the robots meta tag for other directives, you can combine those. For instance:
<meta name="googlebot" content="NOODP, nofollow">
Meta Author
The Meta Author tag will display the author of the document. This Meta tag will reference the name of the person who developed the HTML/XML document being viewed. If you use the Meta Author tag, it is recommended to use it with the author's first and last name. It is not recommended to have the inclusion of the author's email address due to the proliferation of Spam. If the author would like to be contacted, it is advised to include a contact form on a HTML page instead.
Example of a Meta Author tag:
<META NAME="Author" CONTENT="George Costanza, gcostanza@vandalayindustries.com">
Recommendation of Meta Author tag:The use of the Meta Author tag is optional. If you have several individuals contributing to the content of your site, include this tag for assistance in tracking the author. The Meta Author tag is not indexed by Google, Yahoo!, or Bing. While it will not assist you in search engine rankings, it is recognized as part of the "Meta Tag Standard."
Meta Content Language
The Meta Content Language tag declares the natural language of the document. This is also known as the Meta Name Language. Robots use this tag to categorize the language of the web page.
Example of a Meta Content Language tag:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Language" CONTENT="en-GB">
Example of a Meta Content Language tag: It is advised only to use the Meta Content Language tag if your website is written in non-US English. To date we have not tested this tag, but we have had reports from our members that it does assist non-US English sites in getting categorized properly by the search engines.
Meta Content Script Type
The Meta Content Script Type tag is used to specify the default scripting language of the document.
Example of a Meta Content Script Type:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Script-Type" CONTENT="text/javascript">
Recommendations for Meta Content Script Type: It is advised not to use the Meta Content Script Type tag. Search engines do not need this tag to detect scripts as they do this on their own. Browsers do not use this tag either, as they have other detection methods in place.
Meta Content Style Type
The Meta Content Style Type is used to specify the default Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) language for the documents.
Example of a Meta Content Style Type tag:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Style-Type" CONTENT="text/css">
Recommendations for Meta Content Style Type tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Content Style Type tag. Search engines do not need to know the style sheet of a document. Web browsers also do not look to the Meta tags for style sheet information.
Meta Content Type
Used to declare the character set.
The Meta Content Type tag is used to declare the character set of a website. It has become recommended to always use the Meta Content Type tag even if you use a DTD declaration above the Header. If you fail to do so, it may cause display problems. For instance, the document may use UTF-8 punctuation characters but is displayed in ISO or ASCII character sets. There are other benefits to using the Meta Content Type tag. Simply subscribe to our SEO Revolution Newsletter (nominal fee membership) to get the entire scoop of what the Meta Content Type tag can do for your site
Example of a Meta Content Type tag:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
Recommendations of a Meta Content Type tag: It is recommended to always use the Meta Content Type tag along with the DTD declaration format by the World Wide Web Consortium. If you fail to do so, you may cause display problems. For example, the Meta Content Type tag helps properly display the page if the document uses UTF-8 punctuation characters, but is displayed in ISO or ASCII character sets. There are many benefits to using the Meta Content Type tag. To get the entire scoop on the Meta Content Type tags, become a paid member and subscribe to our SEO Revolution Newsletter.
Meta Copyright
The Meta Copyright tag is used to include a copyright, trademark, patent, or other information that pertains to intellectual property.
Example of a Meta Copyright tag:
<meta name="copyright" content="Copyright 2008">
Recommendations for a Meta Copyright tag: It is not required to use a Meta Copyright tag. Please be aware that the Meta Copyright tag will not protect your site's content or your intellectual property. Consult your attorney to ensure you are protected properly.
Meta Designer
The Meta Designer tag is used to declare the designer of the website.
Example of a Meta Designer tag:
<META NAME="Designer" CONTENT="Art Vandaley">
Recommendations of the Meta Designer tag: The Meta Designer tag is optional to use. Usually web designers who want advertising or to catch people hijacking their designs use the Meta Designer tag. It should be understood that search engines do not support the Meta Designer tag.
Meta Distribution
The Meta Distribution tag is used to declare the distribution of your web content. The three classifications of distribution are:
Global (the entire web)
Local (reserved for the local IP block of your site)
IU (Internal Use, not for public distribution).
Example of a Meta Distribution tag:
<META NAME="Distribution" CONTENT="Global">
Recommendations for the Meta Distribution tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Distribution tag. If you want to have restricted distribution, use the robots.txt tag or your HTAccess file.
Meta Expires
The Meta Expires tag is used to declare the date and time after which the web document should be considered expired.
Example of the Meta Expires tag:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="expires" CONTENT="Wed, 26 Feb 2004 08:21:57 GMT">
Recommendations for the Meta Expires tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Expires tag. While the Meta Expires tag is good conceptually, it is impractical for search engines. Not only do search engines not read the Meta Expires tag, but according to my testing, browsers ignore it too. Are you looking to stop Google from caching your site? Even if you use the Meta Expires tag Google will cache your page. The Meta Expires tag is worthless; don't bother with it.
Meta Generator
The Meta Generator tag is used to declare the name and version number of the publishing tool used to create the page. Tool vendors use the Meta Generator tag to assess market penetration.
Example of the Meta Generator tag:
<META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="FrontPage 4.0">
Recommendations for Meta Generator tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Generator tag. If you have Meta Generator tags, delete them if possible. Meta Generator tags serve no useful purpose for your pages.
Meta Language
The Meta Language tag is used to declare the language used on the website. Webmasters who wish to declare the primary language of the web page can use the Meta Language tag.
Example of the Meta Language tag:
<META NAME="Language" CONTENT="english">
Recommendation of the Meta Language tag: It is recommended to only use the Meta Language tag for sites in non-US English languages. No testing has been done in other languages to verify that the Meta Language tag does indeed work.
Meta MS Smart Tags
The Meta MS Smart tags were part of a beta test of Internet Explorer and were removed due to negative press and feedback from users. In short, Microsoft would sell keyword phrases, then the Meta MS Smart Tags would allow those keywords to be highlighted on web pages that would take the user to the advertiser's site. This would mean your site could promote your competitor's site without your consent.
Example of a Meta MS Smart tags:
<META NAME="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" CONTENT="TRUE">
Recommendations for Meta MS Smart tags: It is recommended not to use the Meta MS Smart tags. Microsoft discontinued Meta MS Smart tags technology. If you are working with an SEO firm that demands to insert these tags, quickly find a new SEO company.
Meta MSN (No ODP)
The Meta MSN (No ODP) tag is used for your description in the Bing search results instead of the description used in DMOZ.
Example of a Meta MSN (No ODP) tag:
<META Name="msnbot" CONTENT="NOODP">
Recommendation for Meta MSN (No ODP) tag: It is optional to use Meta MSN (No ODP) tag. If you are unhappy with the description from DMOZ, and most Webmasters are, use the Meta MSN (No ODP) tag. While this is only good for BingBot, you can sub "Robots" for "BingBOT" in the Meta MSN (No ODP) tag to be valid for all bots. As of right now, however, Bing is the only search engine using descriptions straight from DMOZ.
Note: Using the Meta MSN (No ODP) tag will not remove the DMOZ listing immediately. It can take up to four weeks.
Meta Pragma No Cache
The Meta Pragma No Cache tag is used to prevent visitors from seeing a cached version of a specific page. The Meta Pragma No Cache tag forces the browser to pull information from the server each time the page is viewed.
Example of the Meta Pragma No Cache tag:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma" CONTENT="no-cache">
Recommendations for the Meta Pragma No Cache tag: The Meta Pragma No Cache tag has no affect on search engines and is mainly implemented with the intent of helping users. For example, if you have a site that changes on a daily basis, the Meta Pragma No Cache tag would ensure that the visitor sees the most recent version of the page.
However, since you are pulling information from the server each time a visitor views the page, the load time will be affected as well as incurring increased server activity.
Google has stated: "The http-equiv values pragma and expires are attempts at bypassing caches without having to set the HTTP headers correctly. These are probably unnecessary uses; any scenario where there is a legitimate reason to limit caching, the author is going to have enough control over the server to send the appropriate headers. In addition, the meta tags can't be considered reliable (e.g. proxies and transparent caches aren't going to honor them)."
In my opinion, it is better to set the HTTP headers correctly. To learn how to do this, view our article (must be an All Access Member of the SEO Revolution).
Meta Publisher:
The Meta Publisher tag is used to declare the name and version number of the publishing tool used to create the page. The Meta Publisher tag is the same as the Meta Generator tag. Tool vendors might use this tag to assess market penetration.
Example of the Meta Publisher tag:
<META NAME="Publisher" CONTENT="FrontPage 4.0">
Recommendations for the Meta Publisher tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Publisher tag. If you have t Meta Publisher tags, delete them if possible. The Meta Publisher tag serves no purpose for your pages.
Meta Rating
The Meta Rating tag is used to display a content rating similar to the movie rating system (i.e. PG-13).
Example of the Meta Rating tag:
There is not a set form of this tag, nor is there any official statement from the W3C. Some sites recommend using this tag. However, these recommendations have no basis in fact as the governing body of HTML has no reference to it. According to our testing, this tag has no merit.
Recommendations for Meta Rating tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Rating tag. The fact that there is not a set form for the Meta Rating tag suggests you would be better off acquiring a rating from the International International Content Rating Association.
Meta Refresh
The Meta Refresh tag is used to specify a delay in seconds before the browser automatically reloads the document or URL specified.
Example of the Meta Refresh tag:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="3;URL=http://www.domain.com/page.html">
Meta Reply To
The Meta Reply To tag is used to harvest email addresses. The Meta Reply To tag is a Spammers tag. The Meta Reply To tag picks up your email address, then hits you fast and hard with offers-a-plenty.
Example of a Meta Reply To tag:
<meta name="reply-to" content="your.email@address.com" />
Recommendations for the Meta Reply To tag: It is highly recommended not to use the Meta Reply To tag as it is used as a Spamming tool.
Meta Resource Type
The Meta Resource Type tag is used to declare the resource of a page.
Example of a Meta Resource Type tag:
<META name="resource-type" content="document">
Meta Revisit After
The Meta Revisit After tag is used to inform search engines when to return to index your site. It has been stated that the Meta Revisit After tag will boost your site's rankings with search engines that credit fresh pages. This information is false and has no basis.
Example of the Meta Revisit After tag:
<META NAME="Revisit-After" CONTENT="30 days Days">
Recommendations for the Meta Revisit After tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Revisit After tag. Search engines will not obey the Meta Revisit After tag and come back to index your site on their own schedule, not when you inform them.
Meta Set Cookie
The Meta Set Cookie tag is a cookie used to set a cookie in the user's web browser. If you use an expiration date, the cookie is considered permanent and will be saved to disk until it expires. Otherwise it will be considered valid only for the current session and will be erased upon closing the Web browser.
Example of the Meta Set Cookie tag:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Set-Cookie" CONTENT="cookievalue=xxx;expires=Wednesday, 21-Oct-98 16:14:21 GMT; path=/">
Recommendations for the Meta Set Cookie tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Set Cookie tag. While the Meta Set Cookie tag was used years ago to set cookies, cookies can now be set and customized very easily. If you need assistance with cookies, our programming staff can assist you for a nominal fee.
Meta Subject
The Meta Subject tag is used to declare the subject of the web site.
Example of the Meta Subject tag:
<META NAME="Subject" CONTENT="Web Page Subject">
Recommendations of Meta Subject tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Subject tag. No third party agents, including browsers and search engines, support the Meta Subject tag.
Other Meta Tags
There are many other meta
tags, but none are really considered useful nowadays. Many of the tags that we
used did things like:
- Told the spider when to come back
<meta
name="revisit-after" content="30 days">
- Told the browser the distribution
<meta
name="distribution" content="web">
- Told the page to refresh
<meta
http-equiv="refresh" content="30">
- Told the page to redirect/refresh
<meta
http-equiv="refresh" content="x_seconds;
url=http://www.yourhost.com/pagetosendto.html">
We don't use these anymore, either because there are better ways (such as schema tagging or server side methods) or because the engines they used to work on are no longer in existence or Google has explicitly told us they are not great ideas (such as redirects at the page level).
NOTE: Schema tagging and rich
data snippets are single-handedly the most important (and somewhat quietly
announced) change to how your site interacts with the search engines and the
search spiders. Learn it. Know it. Implement it.
Robots Meta Tag
The robots tag is still one of
the most important tags. Not so much for the proper implementation, but the improper.
The robots meta tag lets you
specify that a particular page should not be indexed by a search engine or if
you do or do not want links on the page followed.
Believe it or not, it is still
common for a site to be deindexed because someone accidentally added a noindex
tag to the entire site. Understanding this tag is vitally important.
Here are the four
implementations of the Robots Meta Tag and what they mean.
<META
NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW">
- This means: “Do not Index this page. Do not follow the links on the page.” Your page will drop OUT of the search index AND your links to other pages will not be followed. This will break the link path on your site from this page to other pages.
- This tag is most often used when a site is in development. A developer will noindex/nofollow the pages of the site to keep them from being picked up by the search engines, then forget to remove the tag. When launching your new website, do not trust it has been removed. DOUBLE CHECK!
<META
NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX, NOFOLLOW">
- This means: “Do Index this page. Do not follow the links on the page.” Your page WILL be in the index AND your links to other pages will not be followed. This will break the link path on your site from this page to other pages.
<META
NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, FOLLOW">
- This means: “Do not Index this page. Do follow the links on the page.” Your page will drop OUT of the index BUT your links to other pages will be followed. This will NOT break the link path on your site from this page to other pages.
<META
NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX, FOLLOW">
- This means: “Do Index this page. Do follow the links on the page.” This means your page WILL be in the index AND your links to other pages will be followed. This will NOT break the link path on your site from this page to other pages.
The Charset Tag
Finally, all sites must
validate charset. In the U.S., that is the UTF-8 tag. Just make sure this is on
your page if you're delivering HTML using English characters.
<meta
http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=UTF-8">
Conclusion
While meta tags aren't the
magical solution that you may have heard, they still play an important role in
helping your site get found in search engines. Enjoy your metas!
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