Email: info@link-optimise.com
Phone: +44/(0) 790 604 5264
Though Meta tags are carrying less weight generally on search engines, some of the lesser search engines still use them to ascertain what a website is all about. For this reason, they are worth attending to, as a minor search engine may still be used by a few million users.
Meta Description tag.
Arguably, the most important Meta information you should have on your site, as many search engines, including Google, may use this text to provide a description for your site on a search engine. Clever copy in this part of the search, could just tip the balance on whether or not you are going to get a click. Consider:
- 1. Ryan's shoes, ladies, men's, and children shoes for sale.
- 2. Whizz shoes, men and ladies footwear for sale.
- 3. Blitz shoes, free shipping on all shoes at Blitz shoes, all shoe types available.
Which one would you click on?
Meta Keyword tag.
Though Google pays no attention to these, Bing and Yahoo still do. When choosing your Meta keyword tags, ensure that the ones you use are contained in the copy of the page. Many search engines will penalise you if you use keywords that are not used in the copy of your site.
Meta Language tag.
If your site has a multinational scope, where it will be read by people speaking a different language to your own, then do not leave this tag blank. Though many search engines use other methods to determine language, they do still use this tag as a guide.
Meta Refresh tag.
These are used to redirect visitors to another site. In the main they are used where a change in the URL has occurred on a site. Many search engines see this as unethical if used for a long time, and this can damage your PR. A 301 redirect is considered a better option to redirect traffic.
Meta Robot tag.
The robot mega tag allows webmasters to keep certain pages out of reach from search engine services and indexing.
Syntax:
<meta name="robots" content="robot-terms">
Examples:
The "robot - terms" uses keywords to tell the search engine what can and cannot be done on that page.
noindex - Using this term will stop the page being indexed by a search service.
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
nofollow - This term stops the robots following links from the page.
<meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
Should no meta robot tag exist, the default values are follow, index, and all. Therefore, there is no need to specify them if the page is allowed to be indexed and the links followed. Note that any "robot-terms", containing all, will be indexed and the links followed as all overrides any other "robot-term".
Hence:
<meta name="robots" content=" all, noindex, nofollow"> then the page will be indexed and the links followed.
It is worth noting that links on a page can still be followed if it is not indexed.
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
And indeed, a page can be indexed but the links not followed.
<meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
To stop a page being indexed, and the links not followed then this code should be used.
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
