Meta Tag Question

[dallara]

Does just your index page get a meta tag or should each page have one.............and do I design one for each page seperate or do they all get the same?

 

dallara

[TCH-Andy]

Hi dallara

 

You can have separate meta tags for each page. I tend to have them written specifically for each page.

[dallara]

Thanks Andy...........I have been searching on the exact way it should be put in as html, I know the title, description and keywords are important but I am wondering if the following meta tags should be included:

 

<META HTTP-EQUIV="EXPIRES" CONTENT="">

<META HTTP-EQUIV="CHARSET" CONTENT="ISO-8859-1">

<META HTTP-EQUIV="CONTENT-LANGUAGE" CONTENT="English">

<META HTTP-EQUIV="VW96.OBJECT TYPE" CONTENT="Homepage">

<META NAME="RATING" CONTENT="General">

<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="index,follow">

<META NAME="REVISIT-AFTER" CONTENT="4 weeks">

 

Lastly, the bottom tag (revisit after) that is when you are telling the robots from the search engines to re-check your site.....is four weeks too long? or do I need this at all?

 

As always, thanks for the help

dallara

[TCH-Andy]

Hi Dallara,

 

Re: the last one. That depends how often your pages update. If it's static content the a few weeks is fine. If it changes on a daily basis, then you obviously want it refreshed after a few hours.

 

Personally, I'd ignore most of these ones - I use the content-type along with the title, description and keywords (although fewer search engines use the keywords now).

[dallara]

Thanks, I appreciate it!

 

dallara

[Deverill]

Personally, I'd ignore most of these ones - I use the content-type along with the title, description and keywords (although fewer search engines use the keywords now).

True, most search engines ignore most of them as well. The revisit-after is not worth doing as the search engines will visit when they feel like it for the most part. The keywords are mostly ignored but in never hurts to have them. The description is important as some engines use that if they can't figure out what your page is about from the content.

 

Also, from the search engine point of view, each page is separate. The search engines don't have a concept of a website but rather of individual pages each standing (or falling) on it's own merits, which is why it's better to customize for each page accordingly.

[pagoda]

Greetings,

 

As mentioned before the search engines don't so much care about much of this. That said, I like to use meta tags to record project and page information for my own purposes. It's pretty useful to put notes, or copyright information in there. I also might use these for client specific information. This stuff could also just as well go in comments, but I find it easier to parse with scripts (like perl) when it's in the meta tags.

 

pagoda

[Beeronius]

Although I have yet to implement Meta tags into my current site layout, I'd say that your best bet (assuming you're using PHP) would be to utilize "php include" to insert it into every page, so that you only have to edit it once if you have any revisions.