Meta tags in HTML

[Mantorok]

Is it advisable to use metatags in html pages?

I'm going to be creating som ehtml pages on the fly from my website and then
ultimately publish them, however I want these pages to be picked up by search
engines - can meta tags be used in this way, and if so, what are the recommended
usages?

Thanks
Kev

 

[John Timney \( MVP \)]

As a general rule meta tags are a good thing to have in your page.

They are used for changing or specifying character sets, refreshing
browsers,redirections etc to other pages, and improve search engine ratings
through well defined page descriptions. The meta description tag is very
important for good page structure as it allows you to influence the
description of your page in the crawlers that support that tag when they are
crawling your site - that said it has been abused by spammers using keywords
to influence their ratings with searhc engines and more reliance now is on
good page structure and well written content. You should though still
persist in describing and dating your pages as its good practice.

Do a search on search engine optimization for some advice on what helps.

 

[Mantorok]

Thanks very much, I'll look into that.

Kev

As a general rule meta tags are a good thing to have in your page.

They are used for changing or specifying character sets, refreshing
browsers,redirections etc to other pages, and improve search engine
ratings through well defined page descriptions. The meta description
tag is very important for good page structure as it allows you to
influence the description of your page in the crawlers that support
that tag when they are crawling your site - that said it has been
abused by spammers using keywords to influence their ratings with
searhc engines and more reliance now is on good page structure and
well written content. You should though still persist in describing
and dating your pages as its good practice.

Do a search on search engine optimization for some advice on what
helps.

John Timney
Microsoft MVP