what is meta tag

What is Meta Tag:

A meta tag is a specific HTML tag used to define meta data on your Web pages.

The most commonly used meta tags are:

·         description

·         keywords

·         author

A meta tag is a tag (that is, a coding statement) in the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) that describes some aspect of the contents of a Web page. The information that you provide in a meta tag is used by search engines to index a page so that someone searching for the kind of information the page contains will be able to find it.

There are several kinds of meta tags, but the most important for search engine indexing are the keywords meta tag and the description meta tag. The keywords meta tag lists the words or phrases that best describe the contents of the page. The description meta tag includes a brief one- or two-sentence description of the page. Both the keywords and the description are used by search engines in adding a page to their index.

Types of  Meta tags(39):

Html tag title

The title tag isn't a real meta tag but a so called html tag

<title>relevant and attractive phrase </title>

Meta name description

 If you have some knowledge of codes and HTML you'll be able to type the following line ( the meta description tag ) in the head-part of the source of your web-page.

<meta name="description" content="text">

Meta name keywords

Always specify keywords (needed by search engines to catalogize the page).

<meta http-equiv="keywords" content="HTML, HTML DOM, JavaScript">

Meta name robots

ALL - Robots should follow links, index and archive this page

FOLLOW - Search engine robots should follow links from this page

INDEX - Robots should include and index this page

NOARCHIVE - Prevent search engines from archiving the page

NOINDEX - Robots should follow links, but should not index the page

NOFOLLOW - The page can be indexed, but links should not be followed

NONE - Search engine robots can ignore the page

<meta name="robots" content="ALL">

<meta name="robots" content="INDEX,NOFOLLOW">

Meta name revisit-after

Defines how often search engine spiders should revisit the site

<meta name="revisit-after" content="period">

Meta name abstract

Defines a secondary description, abstract can be used to indicate in just a very short sentence

<meta name="abstract" content="text">

Meta name author

Meta tags that do have a lot of influence are the title of your page, the meta keywords tag and the description meta tags

<meta name="author" content="text">

Meta name contact

The meta contact name is used to add an email address.

<meta name="contact" content="email@address">

Meta name copyright

The photos and the text on your website are protected? You use the so called COPYRIGHT meta tag.

<meta name="copyright" content="name of owner">

Meta name distribution

Declares whether the document is available to the web or on an intranet.

web - for the full internet

intranet - only for intranet

<meta name="distribution" content="web">

Meta name expires

meta tag defines the expiration date and time of the document being indexed.

<meta name="expires" content="date">

Meta name generator

You use the so called meta name generator tag, also known as the formatter tag.

<meta name="generator" content="program">

<meta name="formatter" content="program">

Meta name googlebot

Informs the Google search engine about indexing, archiving and link-following rules.

<meta http-equiv="googlebot" content="noarchive">

Meta name language

You use the so called LANGUAGE tag.

<meta name="language" content="language">

Meta name news keywords

<meta name="news_keywords" content="World Cup, Brazil 2014, Spain vs Netherlands">

Meta name no email

The meta tags no-email-collection is an unspam.com initiative

<meta name="no-email-collection" content="link or terms">

Meta name rating

This meta tag is often use to let the younger web-surfers know the content is appropriate.

<meta name="rating" content="value">

Meta name reply-to

can contact the right person in your organization who is responsible for your website.

<meta name="reply-to" content="email address">

Meta name slurp

<META NAME="Slurp" CONTENT="NOYDIR">

Meta name webauthor

You use the so called WEB_AUTHOR tag.

<meta name="web_author" content="text">

 Meta equiv cache-control

Cookies make the interaction between users and websites faster and easier

<meta http-equiv="Set-Cookie" content="name, date">

Core

Miscellaneous http-equiv

The title of your page the keywords and the description tag do influence your ranking.

<meta http-equiv="imagetoolbar" content="value">