Titles and META Tags - Page 3
July 31, 2001
Although it actually appears just before the META tags on a Web
page, the page's title is of crucial importance because it is
what shows up in the search results when people are looking for a
topic or site.
How seriously do many people take it? Apparently, not very much
so because a search this week for "untitled" in Google turned up
7,540,000 Web pages.
Titles can also appear within the META tags, such as this
example:
<META NAME="TITLE" CONTENT="WDVL: Your
source for Web building information.">
Make sure that when giving a Web page a title, it is done
succinctly because too many words will cause some search engines
to skip over the site. But above all, make sure that your site
has a title — it makes no sense to invest your time and
money to promote your site while omitting the very first and
quite obvious step.
There are many other
META tags
that can be used, some of which seem to me to be a waste of time,
but some can be vital to the Web site's success.
Still, the use of META tags are just as good as many companies on
the Internet willing to guarantee your site a "top 10 listing" in
search engines. I have never wasted the money for one and find
little reason for anyone else to, either.
META tags are easy to include and cost very little to add to a
site compared to the results they can produce. They alone,
though, will not guarantee great placement, either.
However, there are some META tags that can definitely help.
Foremost among the helpful META tags are those which provide
keywords for the search engines to consider.
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT= "Put up to
200 keywords here, each separated by a
comma">
When selecting keywords for a site, avoid duplication and using
too many words. Duplication can throw the search engine off, and
too many words can work against the site by lowering its ranking.
You may be tempted to put the word "sex" or some related words in
your keyword list, but that can easily work against you, too.
Some search engines review these by hand, and if it is found that
you are using the word "sex" to draw someone to your site about
automotive transmissions, it will not be looked upon kindly.
Perhaps the next most important META tag is the one that provides
readers with a description of your Web site. When most search
engines — read, not all — show the results of a
search, it is this information that will be displayed. Properly
done, it can make the difference in getting selected or not. Here
is an example of what it should look like.
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="History of
college basketball since the beginning of
time">
Do not make the mistake of using too many words because that
simply won't work the way you will want it to work. Generally,
speaking, 9 or 10 words is plenty.
Such META information as the generator (the computer software
used to build the Web site) and the author's name won't hurt
anything, but otherwise serve no great purpose. The generator
line is often placed on the page by the program itself. A
copyright statement makes sense to help protect contents —
it also should be displayed on the Internet page — and is
done thus:
<META NAME="copyright" CONTENT="Copyright ©
2001">
Two other META tags that are quite useful are the distribution
and robots tags. The distribution tag says the page will go
global, and the
robots tag tells the search engine's spiders (or robots) to
either follow the links on the page or some other option. They
look like this:
<META NAME="DISTRIBUTION"
CONTENT="global">
The robots tag looks like this:
<META NAME="ROBOTS"
CONTENT="all">
That tells the search engine to use all the bots to check the
page. Aside from "all," robots can be instructed to follow no
links on the page (CONTENTS="none"), add the page to
its index (CONTENTS="index") or not, or to follow
(CONTENTS="follow") all links in search of something
to index.
Now put it all together — don't forget to put it between
the <head></head> tags — and you get something
like this:
<head>
<title>Web Developers Virtual Library — Great place
to go for all your computer answers</title>
<META name="robots" content="index, follow">
<META name="description" content="Site provides all types of
details about the internet industry">
<META name="keywords" content="Web site design, audio, video,
photo, graphics, presentations, advertising, product
identification, effects, logos, software reviews, slideshow,
database, java, javascript, Flash, movies, charts, graphs,
models, portfolios, HTML, DHTML, XML, forms, hit counters,
monthly maintenance, screen captures, collages, scans,
cartooning, prices, benefits">
</head>
With more and more people putting pages on the Internet, it only
makes sense to use every option available to set your site apart
from the rest, and many do not use META tags at all. That is akin
to waiting under the tree at Christmas and seeing Santa come in
and take away presents rather than leave them.
Why Use Style Sheets? - Page 2
Web Sites: Learn to Build Smart and Buy Smart
Summary - Page 4
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