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GoMasonry META Tags Tutorial

Index:

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What are meta tags?

To put it briefly, the meta tag is used by search engines to allow them to more accurately list your site in their indexes. Sometimes. If you simply produce your home page and register the URL with a search engine, or a number of search engines, their spider programe will (eventually) toddle along to your site to index it. Now, each of the search engines does this slightly differently. Altavista for example will grab everything in your document and index it, but will only show the first 250 characters in its description. Consequently, if your site included say, 'Thanks to:....' right at the beginning, this is what Altavista would show in its description, and it wouldn't give the viewer any idea of what your site actually covered. Of course, not all search engines work this way; you should ferret around a little bit to see exactly how the popular engines work, and certainly the major two or three such as Altavista, Lycos, Infoseek and Excite. It therefore makes sense to ensure that your opening paragraph is carefully written to ensure it accurately reflects what your site covers. However, you may be able to exert a certain amount of control over how your site is indexed by the use of the meta tag. (NOTE: Not all search engines use meta tags however, Altavista does, but Excite doesn't, for example. Its not a total cure-all therefore, but you won't miss out by putting the tag in, and it may well work well in some cases.

(Yahoo! Note: Yahoo is a directory rather than a search engine. Every site submitted to Yahoo is looked at by a real person, therefore meta tags do not play any part in getting listed with Yahoo.)
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What does a meta tag look like?

Meta tags are inserted at the top of your document, just after the <TITLE> tags. It follows the usual form of tags, ie <META name="something" content="something else"> but note that you don't have to have a </META> at the end of the tag, the way that you do with something like <BOLD> bold </BOLD>. However, make sure that each tag does not include any line breaks, since some search engines don't like this.

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What can I include in a meta tag?

There are basically four major meta tags that you can use:

  • <META name="resource-type" content="document">
    • The only resource type that is currently in use is "document" This is the only tag that you need to put in for indexing purposes, but use of the others is a good idea.
  • <META name="description" content="a description of your page">
    • Depending on the search engine, this will be displayed along with the title of your page in an index. "content" could be a word, sentence or even paragraph to describe your page. Keep this reasonably short, concise and to the point. Its a good idea to keep it relevant to your page and do not stray into other areas.
  • <META name="keywords" content="a, list, of, keywords">
    • Choose whatever keywords you think are appropriate, seperated by commas. Remember to include synoyms, americanisms and so on. So, if you had a page on books, you might want to include keywords such as author, subjects, fiction, non-fiction and so on.
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Are there optional tags?

Yes, there are many. Here are a couple that are used more than others:
  • <META name="copyright" content="copyright statement"
    • Insert your copyright information in this one.
  • <META HTTP-EQUIV="varname" content="data"
    • This binds the varname to an HTTP header field. An http server might use this to process a document. This one's a tad more tricky.If you included the following example:
      <META HTTP-EQUIV="keywords" content="car,cars"
      then, as part of a GET command the server would include the word car and cars in the HTTP response header.
  • <META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" content="0; url=homepage.htm"
    • This can be used in the HEAD section of the index.html file to redirect it to homepage.htm. The figure after content is the time in seconds that the browser waits before moving on.

There are a few others that you can include, such as "revisit-after" and "rating" if you want to be really comprehensive.

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Other useful points

There is no need to index every single file that you've got on your site - just choose a few representative samples. The description tag should not simply restate the title of the page, it should describe the page. Do NOT "Spam" keywords in your keyword meta tag. Most search engines will penalize you for this.

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Questions about meta tags

Can I copy other keywords from pages simliar to mine?
No. This is not a good idea. It might not reflect the content on your pages, plus this is stealing.

Can I put my competitors name(s) in my meta tags?

Sounds like a good idea when you first think of it doesn't it? I mean, if you put your competitors names in your meta tags, and someone searches for them, they may find you instead and buy a product from you, rather than them. Unfortunately, life isn't that simple. Using a copyrighted name without permission is against the law. Of course, there is nothing to stop you stressing the products themselves that you sell, in common with that of your competitors, in your meta tags and you may find that this works rather better than putting in their names anyway!

Should I use commas or not?
Some people do, some people don't. Neither way has a proven advantage over the other.

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