How to Understand Meta Tags

Most tags, including meta tags, are often a mystery for beginners to the Internet. Meta tags are part of the HTML code that make up Web pages. The HTML code allows the pages to be viewed in a Web browser. Meta tags can not be seen by viewers. They are used to convey information to the search engines, which the search engines then use according to whatever instructions are given.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Internet
• Computer

1. Create a title meta tag by adding your relevant title between these two tags: For example,
   

2. Add the title meta tag to the "Head" section of your HTML page using an appropriate HTML editor.
   

3. Create a keywords meta tag by adding your relevant major keywords inside the empty quotation marks, separated by a comma and a space, to this piece of code:
   For example,
   

4. Add the keywords meta tag to the "Head" section of your HTML page using an appropriate HTML editor.
   

5. Create a description meta tag by adding a relevant description inside the empty quotation marks, separated by a comma and a space, to this piece of code:
   For example,

6. Add the description meta tag to the "Head" section of your HTML page using an appropriate HTML editor.

7. Create a robots meta tag by adding the following piece of code:
   

8. Add the robots meta tag to the "Head" section of your HTML page using an appropriate HTML editor.
   

Tips & Warnings

• Meta tags are to be found in the "Head" section of an HTML document. That is, between the opening tag and the closing tag. There are probably hundreds of meta tags in existence, but only a few are really relevant for most purposes. In fact, the meta tag is not a required tag, however, a few you should use include, the keyword tag, the description tag, and the robots tag. The title tag is not strictly speaking a meta tag. But it resides in the "Head" section and is often referred to as being a meta tag.
• The title tag is by far the most important tag in the "Head" section of an HTML page. Your title will appear in the top bar of the viewer's browser. It will also be considered by the search engines in weighing the relevance of the page. You should also place your main keyword in the title, preferably near the beginning of the title.
• Leave out the robots tag unless you really do not want your page indexed.
• Do not include a robots meta tag if you actually do want the search engines to index the page, which is usually the case. Only use this tag if you do not want the page indexed for whatever reason.
• Do not modify the standard robots tag to encourage search engine robots to index your page. They will do this by default and any encouragement in the robots tag is the wrong use of the tag and will be ignored.