Tuning the Meta Tags

What are meta tags and how do they maximize SEO ventures?

Meta tags are a unique type of HTML tags. These sets contain information regarding a Search engine optimization webpage and its various contents. Search engine spiders and bots are programmed to read do it yourself SEO meta tags that relate to the do it yourself SEO  optimization of a website are found within the page's HTML.
There are two main meta tags the search engine bots and spiders read and they are:

- Search engine optimization keywords meta tags

-  Description meta tags

The particular syntax of the meta tags is displayed below. Note: Meta tags must always be placed within the <HEAD> tags.

<HEAD>
<TITLE>The page title comes here</TITLE>
<META NAME=”description” CONTENT=”the page description comes here.”
<META NAME=”Keywords” CONTENT=”keyword1,keyword2,keyword3”
</HEAD>
<BODY>

How are metatag descriptions composed and what do they contain?

The description meta tag is placed within the <HEAD> </HEAD> tags just before the <BODY> tag of the HTML in the page.

The syntax of the description meta tag is

<META NAME=”description” CONTENT=”the page description comes here.”

Top search engines such as Google and Inktomi employ information in the SEO meta description tags. This information is then used to create a description of the website for display in the search engine results. Search engines will generally "borrow" the descriptions in the meta tags. Therefore, it is critical to accurately phrase all wording while keeping SEO objectives in mind.

When creating the description of a meta tag it is important that the description contains 150 characters. This will adequately describe the content of webpage. Again, the search engines will use the meta tags to craft a search engine description. As such, it is important to weight the following in order to get the most advantage out of meta tags.

  • The meta description tag needs to be 150 characters in size.
  • Include a description in the tag that is exactly what you would want in the results page of the search engines.
  • Always include the main Search engine optimization keyword(s) in the description.
  • Try to make the description unique and original so that it catches the eye of potential visitors.
  • If you don’t include a description metatag in your HTML, the search engines will extract words from the first couple of line from the body of the site's page HTML. This will then be crafted into a description of the site.


What is the Search engine optimization keywords metatag and what should it contain?

The Search engine optimization keywords the metatag is placed inside <HEAD> </HEAD> tags preceding the <BODY> tag of the HTML in the page.

The proper Search engine optimization keyword syntax of the meta tag is

 < META NAME=”Keywords” CONTENT=”keyword1,keyword2,keyword3”

Many search engines including the highly influential Yahoo recommend using Search engine optimization keyword meta tags. These metatags contain lists of critical Search engine optimization keywords that the search engine bots and spiders scan. These words are then used to define the web page description. So, here are a few major factors that must be kept in mind when crafting the metatags. They are:

  • Always separate the keywords with a comma
  • Select the most critical keywords (roughly up to a half a dozen) and include them into the meta tags. (More on how to choose keywords later)
  • Always make sure the keywords employed in the keywords do it yourself SEO meta tag remain the same as those used within the webpage itself.
  • Always avoid using any trademarked do it yourself Search engine optimization keywords in the do it yourself SEO meta tag. Trademarks are protected by applicable law and should not be used without permission even. Yes, this also includes instances where the meta tags which are invisible even to the do it yourself Search engine optimization webpage viewer.

 
What is a "Robot meta tag" and how is it employed

Generally, the Robots metatag acts as an alternative to a robot.txt file. Its purpose is to instruct the search engine robots as to whether or not to index or follow links. It is also used to archive a webpage that contains the robots do it yourself SEO meta tag as well.

Note: the syntax for the robots metatag will employ special directions with the following instructional based words:

 - Index
- Follow
- Archive

When a robots meta tag is excluded, the automatic result will be that the search engines index the web page. In such a scenario, the syntax of the robots meta tag is as follows:
<meta name=”robots” CONTENT=”noindex,follows”>

Instructing the robot to avoid indexing the page and circumvent the links in the page, the proper syntax to be used is: < NAME=”robots” CONTENT=”noindex,nofollow”>

Another means one can employ to stop search engine spiders from placing a webpage in the cache is by using the instruction noarchive. The proper syntax for this is:
 <META NAME=”robots”CONTENT=”noarchive”>

The meta robots tag can also be employed to direct and instruct specific robots bots. This I performed through replacing the “Robots” term in the tag with the actual name of the bot. The syntax for this is:
 <META NAME=”scooter” CONTENT=”noarchive”>

The above tag is critical to preventing Altavista's search engine spider (known as a “scooter”) from archiving/caching the website.

 What is the Robots.txt file and how is it employed to pass on instructions to search engine robots?

The Robots.txt file is a text file that exists on the surface. It possesses specific instructions for the search engine bots and spiders. It can properly and effectively direct search engine bots and spiders in terms of the way they crawl and index certain web pages and certain files of the website. The Robots.txt file possesses a particular method of ceasing the indexing of web pages. (Note: All robot names are to be case insensitive).

Where is the location the Robots.txt files are placed on the server?

It is important that the Robots.txt files are to be uploaded into the top level root directory in the server. This is the location where the homepage (index.html) are located. Keep in mind, Robots.txt will be followed by SEO professionals for a multitude of reasons. These reasons include hiding sensitive data and blocking robots that are known for indexing pages that are incomplete.

How is a Robots.txt file created?

A Robots.txt file is created through the use of a simple text editor. These editors include such common programs such as notepad.

An example of Robots.txt file is presented herein:

 User-agent:Name of the robot comes here for eg. Googlebot
Disallow:The name of the file or directory comes here (This instruction disallows the files/directory from being indexed). Here are some examples:

Below is an example of a Robots.txt file that does not allow all the web pages from being indexed:
User-agent:*
Disallow:/

The following is an example of a Robots.txt file that allows the indexing of all web pages:
User-agent:*
Disallow:

The following is an example of a Robots.txt file that specifically disallows the Altavista Robot “scooter” from gaining access to the Admin and personal directory:
User-agent:scooter
Disallow:/admin/
Disallow:/personal/

The following example is that of a Robots.txt file that tells the bots to avoid crawling any file that ends in "PDF":
User-agent:*
Disallow:/*.pdf

Also, Robots.txt file may possess multiple instructional sets for more than one bot. Each specific set of instructions must be separated by a blank line. Additionally, it is important that there is only one Robots.txt file for a website.

The following example is that of a Robot.txt file that is designed to disallow Google from purposely crawling any dynamically generated pages. These would be the pages that allow Altavista's scooter bots from accessing all the pages on the site.
User-agent:Googlebot
Disallow:/*?
User-agent:Scooter
Disallow:

What is currently the top recommended method for redirecting a visitor from one page to another?

It is generally understood that redirection needs to be avoided it is also understandable that it can also be a necessity in certain circumstances. One of the most common circumstances is when the site owner decides to shift an existing site to one with a new domain name while also trying to maintain the same high traffic levels of the previous site. Here is a rundown of some of the more search engine friendly methods of redirection:

 1. Install 301 Permanent Redirects on the previous pages so as to redirect visitors to the new page. The best part with this method is the fact that it retains the previous search engine rankings. The particular code for ASP is as follows:
<%
Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently"
Response.addheader "Location", "http://www.yourwebsite.com/newdirectory/newpage.htm"
Response.End
%>
 
2. When using a Linux server, the best means of search engine friendly redirection is to always  redirect using htaccess:
You do this by creating an .htaccess file (provided it does not already exist) and create it in a root directory:
Write the following code:
Redirect permanent / http://www.new-url.com

3. Redirecting pages is through IIS Redirect is yet another helpful search engine friendly method:

  • In the ISM (internet services manager), right click on the file or folder selected for redirection
  • Select the radio entitled "a redirection to a URL".
  • Enter the specific redirection page
  • Check the function listed as "The exact URL entered above" as well as the "A permanent redirection for this resource"
  • Hit the 'Apply button'

 What does the meta tag refresh refer to?

The meta refresh tag serves a number of purposes and it may be employed to reload an existing webpage into a browser after a certain amount of time has elapsed. This reloading can also be employed to redirect visitors to different pages. It is important, however, to note that this method of redirecting is not very search engine friendly.For an example of a meta refresh tag that will reload a page after 7 seconds have elapsed, please visit the following site: www.globalwebsitecreations.com

An example of the code is as follows:
 <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="7;url=http://www.globalwebsitecreations.com"/>