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Webmaster-Now > promote a web site > search engines > meta tags

Meta tags give information on web site content to search engines: description, keyword, security, copyright, etc.

Meta tags are not magic. Search engines use them less and less and put more focus on internal and external links.

However, please note that the "description" meta tag is still important. Google uses it to give sites' description along with search results.

Every page should include a "description" meta tag and possibly a « keyword » meta tag. The description text is based on the content of each page. A specific description for each page is better than the same description for all site's pages.

The Meta Tags are:

Description
<meta name="Description" content="Description of the page, in the most descriptive way with keywords, in less than 255 characters">
Maximum of 255 characters.
Summary of the page using keywords and descriptive words.
Most important keyword starting the description's sentence.
The description will show up in search engines' results, so it is important.

Keywords
<meta name="Keywords" content="keyword 1, keyword 2, keyword 3">
Only Inktomi and Teoma take into account the Keywords meta tag.
Put between 7 to 20 keywords, a coma after each keyword.
Maximum of 255 characters.
Do not repeat the same keyword twice.

Abstract
<meta name="Abstract" content="short introduction of the page">
Short introduction to the content of a page in less than 10 words.
Is used sometimes by search engines if they can't find the Description meta tag.

Revisit
<meta name="Revisit-After" content="7 Days">
7 is given only as an example.
Indicate search engines when they have to revisit and reindex the page. It is obviously completely useless if the page is not updated with new content in the meantime. However the Revisit meta tag is useful when a page is supposed to change often on a regular basis.

Robots

Create your meta tags with this meta tag generator

Optimize your meta tags with the meta tag optimizer

Next: Competing on search engines

 
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