Creating Meta-Tags for your HTML pages

Use META tags to help search engines find your web page. If you use Dreamweaver, you can download the Meta Generator Extension, which provides an useful form for entering and creating your META information as shown below. If you don't use Dreamweaver, you will have to type META tags by hand. Recall that META tags belong in the HEAD section of an HTML document.

meta generator interface

Meta tags have the form <meta name="____" content="_____" />. You fill in the blanks from the list and choices below. Or use the meta generator extension. Once you have installed the Meta Generator extension, you will find it as a bull's eye in the HEAD selection of the main tool palette. One note to meta generator users, once you meta tag your file, meta -generator is not at all helpful in re-tagging it, ie, it does not read the meta tags again.

Most the tags show above are self-descriptive, but here are some tips.

Title (is different from the TITLE tag), keep this one short, but use your keywords in your description and title.

Description and key words: No need to repeat words, the search engines may actually ignore pages if there are repetitive keywords, but use your keywords in your description and title.

Author: use this tag if you want the page found when you type your name into a search engine.

Document Class: (completed, draft, living document, published) use living document for pages that change, eg. your home page. This invites search robots to comeback and look again.

Classification: a whole list of categories, choose one that is appropriate.

Document Rights: copyrighted work, public, private, public domain

Rating: probably you can choose safe for kids (or general, mature, restricted).

Robot Searching: index, index and follow, index and nofollow, none, noindex and follow. Mainly you want to let the robots know if they should follow links or not.

Cache Control: chose no-cache so that viewers get the latest version of your page.

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