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09/25/00
What are Meta Tags?
by Karen M. Flores
Ask most site owners what they know about seeding/site promotion and they may be able to piece together an answer that includes the idea of sending their site’s URL to the top search engines. This much is true, but a vital step is often overlooked in this process. It is the creation and placement of meta (rhymes with feta, not beta) tags. These tags are a group of precisely formatted words and phrases that are hidden in the header of the web page so that they will not be visible to the site visitor. Meta tags are a way of describing and categorizing your site.
The first element of the meta tags is the title. It should always contain the company/site name and several keywords or the company slogan, like, "Top selling fish hooks in all of Canada." Many browsers display the title across the top when the site is visited. The title may also appear in the search engines as the name of the site. In the absence of a correctly formatted tag, the site may be named, "Untitled." The title tag should be restricted to 15 words or less.
The second element of the meta tags is the description. This is a sentence or two describing the company or product/service. Again, the company name and slogan should be included. The description should be limited to fewer than 200 characters.
The third and final element is the keyword list. As the name suggests, it is a list of relevant keywords. As with the title and description tags, the company name should be included. For a Canadian fishhook company, words such as fishhooks, fishing, fishing pole, tackle box and Canada would be used.
Words should not be repeated more than four times. This is considered cheating or "spamming" and may cause the site to be dropped from the search engine.
Because most people search by using a two to three word phrase, two to three word phrases should be included in the keywords. Common misspellings should also be included.
The keyword list is essentially unlimited in size, but it is best to keep the list concise and use only relevant terms. All terms should bear some relation to the information on the web site. Some search engines are sophisticated enough to detect if the keywords bear no relation at all to the content of the site. This is considered grounds for removal from the search engines.
Once your correctly formatted meta tags are placed in the header of your page, your site is ready to be submitted to the search engines.
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