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Meta Tags - What Are They & Which Search Engines Use Them?
by Richard Zwicky ©Copyright 2003

Defining Meta Tags is much easier than explaining how they are 
used, and by which engines. The reason is very few engines 
clearly lay out what they do and do not look at, and how much 
emphasis they put on any one factor. So, we’ll start with the
easy part.

Meta Tags are lines of HTML code embedded into web pages that 
are used by search engines to store information about your 
site. These "tags" contain keywords, descriptions, copyright 
information, site titles and more. They are among the numerous 
things that the search engines look for, when trying to evaluate 
a web site.

Meta Tags are not "required" when you're creating web pages. 
Unfortunately, many web site operators who don’t use them are 
left wondering why the saying "If I build it they will come" 
didn’t apply to their site.  

There’s also a few naysayers in the search engine optimization 
industry who claim that Meta Tags are useless. You can believe 
them if you like, but you would be wise not to. While not 
technically "required", Meta Tags are essential.

If you simply create a web site and register the URL with the 
search engines, their spiders will visit your site, and attempt 
to index it. Each search engine operates slightly differently, 
and each one weighs different elements of a web site according 
to their own proprietary algorithms. For example, Altavista 
places an emphasis on the description tag and Inktomi states on
their web site that; 

    Inktomi "(...) indexes both the full text of the Web page 
    you submit as well as the meta-tags within the site's HTML." 

Other search engines like Exactseek are true meta tag search 
engines which clearly state their policy:

    "Your site will not be added if it does not have Title and 
     Meta Description tags." They also use the keywords tag.

Of course, not all search engines work this way. Some place 
their emphasis on content. The search engines have over 100
individual factors they look at when reviewing a web site. Some 
of these factors deal with page structure. They check to see that 
all the 't's are crossed, and the 'i's dotted. They note sites 
that have omitted basic steps, like missing tags.

One reason so many engines de-emphasized the meta-keyword tag 
had to do with spam. There was a time when 'search engine 
promotion specialists' would cram keywords tags full of 
irrelevant information. The web site would be selling garbage 
cans, but the keywords tags were chock full of irrelevant terms 
like "mp3" or "Britney Spears". They figured that if enough 
people visited their site, some would buy.  

So today, to avoid and penalize this kind of abuse, some search 
engines don’t specifically use the keywords tag as part of the
scoring of a site, but they monitor the keywords to ensure they 
match the content in the site. The reasoning being that, if the 
tags are irrelevant, they must have an alternate purpose. Is it 
a spam site? When keywords tags are completely irrelevant to the 
content, some search engines, that don’t specifically use 
keywords tags, will penalize that web site. 

Even for those engines that have downplayed the value of Meta 
Tags, there are situations where Meta Tags gain considerably 
in importance, e.g. sites with rich graphics, but poor textual 
content. Unfortunately, a picture is worth 1000 words to you 
and me, but zero to a search engine. If a site has poor textual 
content, the engines will be more dependent than ever on the 
Meta Tags to properly categorize it. 

Even if you ensure you have completely relevant Meta Tags, some 
search engines will still ignore them. But better they ignore 
them, than they ignore your whole site because they suspect 
something is less than above board. Never hope that having Meta 
Tags will make the difference in all the search engines; nothing 
is a substitute for good content. But in cases where the engine 
depends on that content, it may be the only thing that does work 
for your site.

So How To Use The Meta Tags?

Meta tags should always be placed in the <head> area of an HTML 
document. This starts just after the <html> tag, and ends
immediately before the <body> tag. Here’s how the most basic set 
should look:

     <title>SiteProNews Articles</title> 
     <meta name="description" content="SiteProNews... "> 
     <meta name="keywords" content="sitepronews web design 
     search engine articles"> 
     <meta name="robots" content="index,follow">

Always make sure that your meta tags do not have any line breaks, 
otherwise the search engines will just see bad code and ignore 
them. You should also avoid use of capitals in your code (html5 
standard) as well as repetition of terms within the keywords tag. 

What Goes Into a Meta Tag?

<meta name="description" content="a description of that specific 
web page"> 

Many search engines will display this summary along with the 
title of your page in their search results. Keep this reasonably
short, concise and to the point, but make sure that it’s an 
appropriate reflection of your site content.

<meta name="keywords" content="a list of key words or terms about 
the page">

Keywords represent the key terms that someone might enter into 
a search engine. Choose only relevant keywords. If the terms are 
going to appear in your keywords tag, they must appear in the 
content of your site, or be a synonym to a term on your site. 
Most search engines compare your meta content with what is 
actually on your page, and if it doesn’t match, your web site 
can get penalized, and suffer in search results.  

<meta name="robots" content="index,follow">

Many web pages have this tag wrong. An example of the wrong 
usage is content="index, follow, all" - wrong because some 
spiders can't handle spaces between the words in the tag or 
the word "all". Most engines by default assume that you want 
a web page to be indexed and links followed, so using the wrong 
syntax can actually result in the spider coming to the wrong 
conclusion and penalizing, or worse, ignoring the page outright. 
If by chance you do not want your links followed, or the page 
not indexed, then you would substitute "noindex" and or 
"nofollow" into the tag.  

The Real Value

With the Internet growing at a rate of over 8,000,000 new pages 
per day, and the search engines adding a fraction of that number, 
Meta Tags are a common standard which can reasonably ensure a 
measure of proper categorization for a web site. So, always 
ensure that you cover all the bases, and use completely relevant 
terms in properly structured Meta Tags. Using tags properly will 
pay dividends in the short and long term. After all, using them 
properly only helps the search engines, which means they will 
send you more qualified traffic - customers.

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Richard Zwicky is a founder and the CEO of Metamend Software,  
(http://www.metamend.com) a Victoria B.C. based firm whose 
cutting edge Search Engine Optimization software has been 
recognized around the world as a leader in its field. Employing 
a staff of 10, the firm's business comes from around the world, 
with clients from every continent. Most recently the company was
recognized for their geo-locational, or LBS technology, which 
correlates online businesses with their physical locations. 
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