What are META tags?
They are information inserted into the “head” area of your web pages. Other than the title tag, 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.
META tags are optional lines of HTML code in the HEAD section of your document that can be used to describe your page. META tags provide descriptive information about your site to search engines, but in a form that isn’t displayed by the browser. The relevant attributes for search engines are the DESCRIPTION and KEYWORDS attributes. Only 25% of web sites include META tags, and not all search engines use them to rank pages, but many do. Page Primer shows you how to use META tags to effectively promote your site with the search engines that do index them.
META tags are special tags that define data items within your HTML document. There are many types with many explicit purposes. The most common use of META tags on the web is to help search engines categorize your site. The two main search-engine META tags are: “keywords” and “description”. It is ideal to put some thought into what you want these to say, and insert them on your pages before submitting your site to search engines. Hints: • With keywords, start with the keyword most likely to be used to find your site, and end with the least likely. • With description, use lots of colourful adjectives that people might search on, and try not repeat words. Also, do not use too many words, as most search engines will stop reading after a certain number of characters, so your description may appear on theirsite, ending mid-sentence. Format: • META tags must be contained within the
section of your HTML document. • Format of keywords is as follows: