Help with meta tags.

[mit]

I think Title is the most important thing for any web page. And with Description tag, you can get one more advantage for adding up more content. But it should be relevant and interesting to visitors, I prefer.

[saj]

Originally Posted by coolslko

I am in little confusion about using Meta tags because as I know meta tags are devalued and not valuable for search engines as earlier and do not help to get higher ranking on search engines or Page rank so still we should use meta tags or now we should leave it.

Does it all right to add meta tags and leave your keywords open among your competitors. I mean by using keyword tag we add our all main keywords to our keyword tag and your competitors can easily see your keywords through view source and your hard work in selecting right keywords will be waste and your competitors have better chance to rank well and also have great chance to beat you without doing enough hard work.

What should we do, use it or avoid Meta tags now?

Webmasters who experienced about them and used them pulled well more traffic. Then got clever and started using them to betray, so the engines got smarter and step by step attributed less and less importance to them.
Today, some webmasters leave them out totally.

The way I see it is that, if Meta tags don't hurt ranking (which they don't), then there's no cause not to use them.

Nothing to loose. (As long as you don't cheat on)

Your page will be penalised if a search engine feels that you are applying Meta tags to gain an unfair reward.

Don't burden description with only keywords.
A keyword-loaded description is grounds for exception from a search engine's database. Even if get away with it, some search engines use that description in its search results under site's title. The true part of the description is to invite a click. It has to grab the attention of a human reader and convince her to click through to site. Make site description keyword-rich, but focus on the human reader.
Don't repeat keywords
You can safely repetition a word 3 times. Some people say it's 5 times. Perhaps they're right. I stick to 3 to be safe.

[WEBcouk]

Hi

This little nutshell eh - and this is a subject I feel often is forgotten. There are tons of META tags available, but so many developers simply ignore them, or just don't know how to use them.
Here's a list of useful META tags you can use.

name="keywords" content="keywords go here"
This tag is a must. It lets you specify keywords people might use when looking for your site. Enter as many as you can think of, but don't repeat each word more than once.

name="description" content="description goes here"
Here you can enter a short description for your site. Avoid using phrases like "the best" .. Keep the description short, but to the point. Usually, this is what a person will see as the title when using a search engine.

http-equiv="expires" content="expiration date (Example: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 23:00:00 MST)"
If you want to make sure that the visitor gets the latest version of your page, enter an expiration date in the past. Or, simply enter the date when the page will become outdated.

http-equiv="pragma" content="no-cache"
This tag tells IE not to cache the page.

name="robots" content="instructions go here"
This tag tells a SE spider whether to index a page or not (index/noindex), and whether to follow links on the page or not (follow/nofollow). You can use these in any combination you want.

index, follow - Default value. Page will be indexed, and links on the page will be followed.

index, nofollow - Page will be indexed, but any links on the page will not be followed.

noindex, follow - Page will not be indexed, but links on the page will be followed.

noindex, nofollow - Page will not be indexed, and links on the page will not be followed.

name="author" content="author's or company's name"
Pretty self explanatory. Information about who is the author goes here. This information will for example be showed in the page info for Mozilla users.

name="copyright" content="copyright information"
Pretty self explanatory as well. The proper copyright information starts with the word 'Copyright' followed by the copyright symbol, the year(s) you claim copyright, and your name (or company). Example: Copyright © 1996-2007 - Copyright - WEBcouk - Darren Earney

http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1"
Is your site using a certain character set? Well, here you can specify which character map to use. As long as you are using only basic latin characters (a-z, no funky symbols that can't be typed on a standard keyboard), this tag can be omitted. But if you are using certain character entities (like àçëíðñø) you should use this tag to ensure that they will be displayed properly.

I hope this helps you COOLSLKO and Merry Xmas,

Darren at WEBcouk

[~DaRk-EyE~]

Originally Posted by WEBcouk

Hi

This little nutshell eh - and this is a subject I feel often is forgotten. There are tons of META tags available, but so many developers simply ignore them, or just don't know how to use them.
Here's a list of useful META tags you can use.

name="keywords" content="keywords go here"
This tag is a must. It lets you specify keywords people might use when looking for your site. Enter as many as you can think of, but don't repeat each word more than once.

name="description" content="description goes here"
Here you can enter a short description for your site. Avoid using phrases like "the best" .. Keep the description short, but to the point. Usually, this is what a person will see as the title when using a search engine.

http-equiv="expires" content="expiration date (Example: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 23:00:00 MST)"
If you want to make sure that the visitor gets the latest version of your page, enter an expiration date in the past. Or, simply enter the date when the page will become outdated.

http-equiv="pragma" content="no-cache"
This tag tells IE not to cache the page.

name="robots" content="instructions go here"
This tag tells a SE spider whether to index a page or not (index/noindex), and whether to follow links on the page or not (follow/nofollow). You can use these in any combination you want.

index, follow - Default value. Page will be indexed, and links on the page will be followed.

index, nofollow - Page will be indexed, but any links on the page will not be followed.

noindex, follow - Page will not be indexed, but links on the page will be followed.

noindex, nofollow - Page will not be indexed, and links on the page will not be followed.

name="author" content="author's or company's name"
Pretty self explanatory. Information about who is the author goes here. This information will for example be showed in the page info for Mozilla users.

name="copyright" content="copyright information"
Pretty self explanatory as well. The proper copyright information starts with the word 'Copyright' followed by the copyright symbol, the year(s) you claim copyright, and your name (or company). Example: Copyright © 1996-2007 - Copyright - WEBcouk - Darren Earney

http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1"
Is your site using a certain character set? Well, here you can specify which character map to use. As long as you are using only basic latin characters (a-z, no funky symbols that can't be typed on a standard keyboard), this tag can be omitted. But if you are using certain character entities (like àçëíðñø) you should use this tag to ensure that they will be displayed properly.

I hope this helps you COOLSLKO and Merry Xmas,

Darren at WEBcouk

Nice Post, additional info...
Thanks Man...

[mrcountry]

Can my description, keyword and title tags contain actual content on the page as well as names in the links. The reason I ask is that some of my target keywords etc or in the link text. I guess what I mean, is will this help with search engines to have link text in the description and title tags

[seconnection]

Yes that would help as long as it is revelant to the underlying content on the site!!

[mrcountry]

I appreciate the reply. It goes with the site content.

[bbowers]

Yes, it can. As a matter of fact, some joomla seo plugins actually take a line from your post, and parse words from your post to generate your meta tags.

[anie_b]

Description is the displaying the content in the summarrised manner just like displaying the theme of the website. Title and keywords contains the keyword and those keywords are also inserted in the content keeping in view the density.

[lyas]

Hi,
I was always under the impression meta tags were very important.
Now I am hearing, they are not?

I just came across your forum and am reading and reading but thought I might as well just post.

Would someone take a look at my website, www.shedplans.com
and give me an honest opinion on the meta tags and the site in general?

Thanks.

[dealhunter]

Is there anywhere I can go to learn exactly how I should do my Meta Tags for my site. John

[pinkfluffybunny]

You seem to have a handle on the metas - just need to work on the body links and alts

Examples:
"Our plans" - Our shed plans
"If you might want to use your shed as a workshop, add windows for light and ventilation"

Sheds Plans - to use your shed as a workshop shed,
Plans to add shed windows
Plans to add light and ventilation to your shed.

Your keywords are kinda messed up like these- FAQ, building, how to, howto

etc. If you're gonna do that that the commas out! or shed how to Shed faq shed building plans how to build shed

Here's where you stand on the keywords you listed: http://64.62.146.160/1/sheds.htm

[pinkfluffybunny]

Sorry, I should have checked your host first - above may not be correct - crappy host crappy results - sorry I'm so used to just checking my clients (I have them hosted on a good host)


It's hard to get the real standings because your ISP has the DNS records messed up - get a good host and DNS server- you're host is killing you, even if you do everything right the engines will not be able to index your site correctly.

NS list mismatch: registration authority reports that domain is hosted on the following servers: 'ns1.techintervention.com; ns2.mydyndns.org', but DNS server ns1.techintervention.com reports domain to be hosted on 'ns2.techintervention.com; ns1.techintervention.com'. Please make sure that you configure the same DNS servers in registrar database and on your DNS

DNS server ns2.mydyndns.org[204.13.249.76] is alive, but not authoritative for domain 'shedplans.com' and didn't return SOA
1 server(s) are alive
DNS server ns2.mydyndns.org failed and will be dropped from other tests

I'm not going to waste time checking it with the www, then without the www then - - never mind you get it - the DNS is all screwed up

[blackimpallass]

PFB, what are some of the host companies you would recommend?

[pinkfluffybunny]

I don't want to recommend one on the board.

A good host will cost about 35.00 a month. But if you get a return on your investment it's worth it. Service is what you pay for - not a place to park a site.

I'll pm you the host (his personal number) I use them for my clients - the guy that owns it is a total geek - but the best I've found. (I have no interest in the company at all).

[lyas]

thanks so much for looking at this and pointing out things.
This is alittle over my head.
My problem is my items are all digital downloads.
I use a program thru paypal which is on that server.
Do you know of another program that would do the autodownload after the payment is recieved?

I recieved your PM and will give this some thought.

[pinkfluffybunny]

Yes - most low cost shopping carts will allow it - the problem is keeping the files secure.
A good host will put IIS permissions on the directory to secure them.

A good cheap little cart that is really decent is "Candypress" - it has a add on meta tag mod which you should purchase if you buy the cart (20 bucks).

An example of how the DNS can help or screw you up in the engines -

here's a site I did (cheap for a Org), notice it was indexed with the IP, without the www and with the www (in other places) but google perferred without the www in most listings. -
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...entral+florida (position 3 by the old IP which I changed recently to 64.62.146.135 to get it to drop out of google - it was picked up while I was doing the site and before it was done, one and two is the domain without the www)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...entral+florida
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=donate+vfw+florida
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...FW&btnG=Search

where MSN perferred with the www. - http://search.live.com/results.aspx?...c=IE-SearchBox
http://search.live.com/results.aspx?...arch&form=QBRE
http://search.live.com/results.aspx?...arch&form=QBRE


your host has to make all available to the engines and visitors

[lyas]

I wish I understood more of this stuff. I am gonna go study this candypress and see if it will replace the EW program we are using now.
I am not adverse to moving my site from that little free server to a decent one as long as I can be assured it will still be automated and pay off for the extra expense.

I really appreciate your helping me here *S*

[pinkfluffybunny]

That's the thing, you don't have to understand all this stuff, if your host does.....lol

Good luck to you -

by the way tell the guy you want front page server entensions (it will already have it tho)

You'll be able to edit online live and not worry about building and uploading. I think I can find you a copy of fp somewhere....lol

I post on candypress's forum from time to time - http://www.candypress.com

There are carts that do more, but for your needs it will do fine.

Ebay - may do you good also.


those blue dot alts need to be filled in - it's how you add more content to a page without having to scroll <td valign=top width='6%'><IMG SRC="pics/pics/bluebutton.gif" alt="fill me in and add a link">

[lyas]

That's the thing, you don't have to understand all this stuff, if your host does.....lol

Good luck to you -

by the way tell the guy you want front page server entensions (it will already have it tho)

You'll be able to edit online live and not worry about building and uploading. I think I can find you a copy of fp somewhere....lol

Oh I dont mind making the pages and uploading them. Its just learning about the shopping cart (download program, I am concerned about) or I would have moved the site from his server long ago......