The <meta> Tag
META Tags are used as part of your HTML code. The <meta>
tag has no impact on display -they provide information about your content to
browsers, indexers, and potentially any application than can host your HTML
document. When an indexing engine or spider scans your Web site, it first looks
at your meta content and uses this content to display what you're accustomed to
seeing as the results of a search.
In the absence of meta information, indexers generally display the first paragraph or so from the actual page as its description. With the <meta> tag, you can specify a succinct description of your site as an abstract and use key keywords relevant to your site that will help users locate your site using those keywords as a search criteria.
To improve the way your site is indexed and described, you have to use two <meta> tags per page to provide a document description and keywords list. Both tags must be placed inside the document's header (<head> container), and define the following attributes:
HTTP-EQUIV: binds the tag to an HTTP response header.
NAME: identifies the HTTP response header's content type.
CONTENT: defines the HTTP response header's content.
Consider the following example. The first tag defines the document's description, and the second defines the document's keywords.
<meta http-equiv="description" name="description" content = "This should be a succinct statement about the nature or purpose of the site.">
<meta http-equiv="keywords" name="keywords"
content="This should be a comma-separated list of as many relevant keywords
or phrases that might help users locate your site.">
Here, is an example of <meta> tag code:
<meta name="author"
content="John Doe">
<meta name="organization"
content="Columbus State University">
<meta name="description"
content="Columbus State University is a
four-year institution located in Columbus Georgia, is a member of the University
System of Georgia, and is approved to offer undergraduate, graduate, and
one-year certificate programs.">
<meta name="keywords"
content="college, university, Columbus State
University, Columbus, Georgia, learning, distance learning, distance
education">
It is very important that the <meta> tag description be typed in just one line. Each keyword should be indexed in order of relevant. Also, each web page should have different <meta> tag.
There's more to publishing your pages than the <meta> tag, however. To make them effective, you'll still need to submit your site URLs to as many Internet search engines and indexers as possible.
For more information about <meta> tag. Check out at http://vancouver-webpages.com/META/about-mk-metas2.html
Search Engines | Titles | Descriptive Text | MetaTags