Meta Data

Summary

Meta Data is information about data.

In the context of web sites; The web page is the data, so the Meta Data is information in the web page that describes the web page.

Confused? Well, lets use a different real life example to explain further.

Most products in a shop have a bar code, if the product itself is the data, then the bar code is the Meta Data.

HTML Meta Data

Meta Data in HTML documents assist in lots of different ways.

One of the most common uses of Meta Data is to display the web page title in the web browser.

A working example of this is this web page. You will see the title of this web page at the top of your web browser.

Meta Data can also be used to outline other information about a web page. For example, a description of the web page, the author, keywords etc...

Common HTML Meta Data

The following table is a list of common Meta Data Tags and a short example.

Key:
B = Used by most browsers.
SE = Used by most search engines.

Meta Tag	Example	B	SE
CONTENT TYPE	<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
TITLE	<title>The Title of the Page<title>
DESCRIPTION	<META NAME="description" CONTENT="A description of the web page">
KEYWORDS	<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="A, comma, separated, list, of, keywords">
AUTHOR	<META name="Author" content="SEO Crusade">
COPYRIGHT	<META name="copyright" content="© 1997 Acme Corp.">
ROBOTS	<META NAME=robots CONTENT="noindex, follow">
REFRESH	<META HTTP-EQUIV=Refresh CONTENT="10; URL=http://www.the page to refresh to.com/">
EXPIRES	<META http-equiv="Expires" content="Thu, 21 Aug 2008 01:22:29 +0100">

Meta Data and Search Engine Optimisation (optimization)

Some of the meta data outlined in the table above is very useful when optimising a web page for the search engines.

The most important is the TITLE tag used in the HEAD element of a web page. Whilst the TITLE tag is important, it should be totally relevant to the page in question.

The other meta data that applies to search engine optimisation is the Keywords and Description. W3C recommend that the keywords be listed with a space after each comma, just as in the example above. The Description should be 2-3 sentences outlining the purpose of the page, usually keeping within 255 characters in length.

Its an obvious statement, but one that needs to be mentioned; The Meta Data in the page should reflect the content.

By packing unrelated keywords into the Meta Data there is every chance your web site will not perform in the search engines. This use of technology is deemed Black Hat and could get you banned from the Search Engines.

Warning: Be careful with your Meta Data, this can have a huge impact on your search engine results depending on the indexing algorithms applied to your web site.

Have Your Meta Data Researched

Here at SEO Crusade we have the tools to research and produce the best Meta Data for your web site.

If you would like to have SEO Crusade look at your Meta Data, please contact us.