Meta tags and rankings
How to Use Meta Tags for Search Engine Optimization
Meta elements provide information about a given webpage, most often to help search engines categorize them correctly, and are inserted into the HTML code in the format illustrated above, but are not visible to a user looking at the site. Want to get a top ranking in search engines? No problem! All you need to do is add a few magical “meta tags” to your web pages, and you’ll skyrocket to the top of the listings. Meta tags have never been a guaranteed way to gain a top ranking on crawler-based search engines. Today, the most valuable feature they offer the web site owner is the ability to control to some degree how their web pages are described by some search engines. They also offer the ability to prevent pages from being indexed at all.
What are Meta Tags?
Meta tags are element of HTML coding on a website that is used by search engines to index a website. Most of the meta-tags are included within the ‘header’ code of a website and the most important tags are the title, description and keyword tags. Other than the title tag (explained below), information in the head area of your web pages is not seen by those viewing your pages in browsers. Rules used by different search engines govern how such tags are used, how many characters they should contain, and how they should be formatted.
How to Use HTML Meta Tags
META tags with a NAME attribute are used for META types which do not correspond to normal HTTP headers. This is still a matter of disagreement among developers, as some search engine agents interpret tags which contain the keyword attribute whether they are declared as “name” or “http-equiv,” adding fuel to the fires of confusion. More in-depth coverage of the three major meta tags that have been used by crawler-based search engines: the meta keywords, description and robots tags.
The Meta description tag allows you to influence the description of your page in the crawlers that support the tag (these are listed on the Search Engine Features page).
META tags have two possible attributes:
<META HTTP-EQUIV=”name” CONTENT=”content”>
<META NAME=”name” CONTENT=”content”>
META tags should be placed in the head of the HTML document, between the <HEAD> and </HEAD> tags (especially important in documents using FRAMES).
The Meta keyword tag is also sometimes useful as a way to help your page come up for synonyms or unusual words that don’t appear on the page itself. For instance, let’s say you had a page all about the “Penny Black” stamp. You never actually say the word “collecting” on this page. By having the word in your Meta keywords tag, then you may help increase the odds of coming up if someone searched for “penny black stamp collecting.” Of course you would greater increase the odds if you just used the word “collecting” in the body copy of the page itself.
Branding Versus Search Engine Optimization
Branding versus search engine optimization is a marketing dilemma that larger companies will need to come to grips with on the Internet. Often companies will need to decide whether to promote their own brand name as their main keyword phrase or optimize for a more generic keyword phrase.
For instance, one search engine report states that 1.3 million visitors per month search for the term “Best Buy.” This same report states that the term “electronics” is searched for by 1.1 visitors per month. The obvious choice in this scenario is for Best Buy to optimize for their own brand name first and the word “electronics” second.
Another issue in branding is trademark infringement. Courts have upheld that websites using another company’s branded name in its meta tags is engaging in trademark infringement. For instance, a site about cats would be infringing if it put the name Best Buy in its Meta tags in hopes of gaining traffic from this trademarked word. Large companies have to protect themselves from others stealing traffic that is rightfully theirs. These companies cannot however protect a generic term such as “electronics” as that is fair game for all electronics companies.
Branding versus search engine optimization is a marketing dilemma that larger companies will need to come to grips with on the Internet. Often companies will need to decide whether to promote their own brand name as their main keyword phrase or optimize for a more generic keyword phrase. For instance, one search engine report states that 1.3 million visitors per month search for the term “Best Buy.” This same report states that the term “electronics” is searched for by 1.1 visitors per month. The obvious choice in this scenario is for Best Buy to optimize for their own brand name first and the word “electronics” second.
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