Sure about this likings!

Creating Widgets for Your Websites and Blogs

Creating Widgets for Your Websites and Blogs --- By Doran Roggio (c) 2007

With a widget you can place the current information from your blogs and or/websites on other webpages, and your personal pages on social networks like myspace, ning.com and your private clubs. This is not only fun and informative, but an excellent promotional tool.

What is a widget? According to Wikipedia a "web widget is anything that can be embedded within a page of HTML, i.e. a web page. A widget adds some content to that page that is not static. Generally widgets are third party originated... Widgets are also known as modules, snippets, and plug-ins. Widgets can be written in HTML, but also in javascrípt, flash and other scripting languages..."

Applications can be integrated within a third party website by the placement of a small snippet of code. This is becoming a distribution or marketing channel for many companies. The code brings in 'live' content - advertisements, links, images - from a third party site without the web site owner having to update."

You have probably seen widgets on web sites you have visited. When clicked on the widget will take you to the source of the information. Although widgets have been around since the late nineties, they are becoming increasing more popular especially with the rise of social networking.

I first started playing around with widgets as a way to promote my own AC published content. While widgets are not that difficult, they can be a little tricky at first if unfamiliar to you. It took me several tries to perfect my own widgets and place them on my blog and social networking sites. They now work perfectly without any problems. As I add content to my AC page for example, the widget automatically updates to show the most current article titles.

If you have not had the opportuníty to work with widgets or have attempted to do so without success, this article is for you. With little effort you will be able to make the widgets and place them on the web pages that you choose. Once mastered the widgets are really cool and worth the effort.

Making A Widget

At widgetbox.com you can make a widget to place on your pages. You can customize the widget with size, details, title and colors and even líst it in their blidget directory which gives more exposure to your blog and AC page (every little bit of promotion helps). You can make as many widgets as you want, I have one for my blog at Women-sense.com and another for my AC content producer page so far.


Go to widgetbox.com, on the left sidebar clíck on the button that says 'Make a blidget'. This will open up a box that asks for the url where the information is being gathered. For my blog I just entered the blog url, (http://women-sense.com). Widgetbox.com automatically draws from the rss feed for that URL. Don't ask me how, I have no idea but it works. For my Associated Content I added the actual RSS link which I found by clicking on the RSS symbol and copying the url address from the browser address bar.

Once you add the link to the blidget box it will open to a page that will give you customizing options. You will see your widget on the right hand side with your information from the RSS feed. You can opt to líst article titles or titles with article summaries. Different colors as well as sizing and/or images are other options available. Fool with the options until you get it the way you want it to look.

When you finish setting the options and you are happy with the way it looks, clíck on one of the article titles to assure it is working correctly. When clicked it should clíck thru to the site your are promoting.

Registering and Getting The Code

If working correctly, the next step is to get the code. Now you will need the code in order to place the widget on your myspace page or other website of your choice.

Before getting the code the next step in the creation of your widget offers you the chance to líst your widget in the blidget gallery. I opted for this and you will probably want to do so as well. It can only add to your exposure. Add keyword tags and clíck 'publish blidget'.

You will then be asked to register if you do not already have an account. Don't worry, the service is absolutely frëe. By registering you will be able to come back and make as many widgets as you want and add them to your account for editing.

Once you have registered you will now be taken to a another page with several options. Near the top you will see the title of the widget (example: AC Media) on the far right of the title clíck the green button that says 'get widget'.

Placing The Widget On Websites

A drop down líst opens up for you to choose where to place the widget. You will see there are many choices. If you are placing your widget on myspace, for example, choose that selection. You will be asked for your myspace email and password, along with what section you want the widget to be placed. Widgetbox.com will automatically place the widget on your myspace page in the section you desire.

Perhaps you want to place the widget on a site that is not listed. In this case you would choose the section that says, 'get code'. There will be two choices to choose from, a javascrípt and a flash scrípt. At this point you may have to experiment to see which code will work on the site you are attempting to place the widget.

Many sites do not allow javascrípt. If you are working on your own webpages you can probably use the javascrípt code. Copy and paste the code in your website's html, save and upload your page as usual. The widget should work fine.

For other sites like ning.com you want the flash scrípt. Select all and copy the code for the flash scrípt. Paste the code into a block where you are able to add information by clicking on edit/add in the box and paste the code. You are almost done.

Before saving you will need to add opening and closing div tags to the code in order for it to show up. At the beginning of the code place the

and at the end of the code include
.

Clíck save and close the opened text box and your widget should be displayed. If correctly done, your widget will automatically update every time you add new content to the site your widget is promoting.

About The Author
Doran Roggio is a freelance writer & online entrepreneur. For business resources visit Doran at http://atdorans.com and http://adsense-smarts.doranunlimited.com.

The Lucky Thirteen - The Critical SEO Checklist

When it comes to SEO not all of us have the time to be experts. At some point the real "gurus" of SEO and other topics are the people with a whole lot of time on their hands. This líst, put together with the everyday webmaster in mind, drives home some absolutely crucial points that you should keep in mind when optimizing your pages for valuable search rankings.

1. Chëck Search Engine Crawl Error Pages

It's important to monitor search engine crawl error reports to keep on top of how your site and its pages are performing. Monitoring error reports can help you determine when and where Googlebot or another crawler is having trouble indexing your content - which can help you find a solution to the problem.


2. Create/update robots.txt and sitemap files

These files are supported by major search engines and are incredibly useful tools for ensuring that crawlers index your important site content while avoiding those sections/files that you deem to be either unimportant or cause problems in the crawl process. In many cases we've seen the proper use of these files make all the difference between a total crawl failure for a site and a full index of content pages which makes them crucial from an SEO standpoint.

3. Chëck Googlebot activity reports

These reports allow you to monitor how long it's taking Googlebot to access your pages. This information can be very important if you are worried that you may be on a slow network or experiencing web server problems. If it is taking search engine crawlers a long time to index your pages it may be the case that there are times when they "time out" and stop trying. Additionally, if the crawlers are unable to call your pages up quickly there is a good chance users are experiencing the same lag in load times, and we all know how impatient internet users can be.

4. Chëck how your site looks to browsers without image and JavaScrípt support

One of the best ways to determine just what your site looks like to a search engine crawler is to view your pages in a browser with image and JavaScrípt support disabled. Mozilla's Firefox browser has a plug-in available called the "Web Developer Toolbar" that adds this functionality and a lot more to the popular standards-compliant browser. If after turning off image and JavaScrípt support you aren't able to make sense of your pages at all, it is a good sign that your site is not well-optimized for search. While images and JavaScrípt can add a lot to the user experience they should always be viewed as a "luxury" - or simply an improvement upon an already-solid textual content base.

5. Ensure that all navigation is in HTML, not images

One of the most common mistakes in web design is to use images for site navigation. While for some companies and webmasters SEO is not a concern and therefore they can get away with this, for anyone worried about having well-optimized pages this should be the first thing to go. Not only will it render your site navigation basically valueless for search engine crawlers, but within reason very similar effects can usually be achieved with CSS roll-overs that maintain the aesthetic impact while still providing valuable and relevant link text to search engines.

6. Chëck that all images include ALT text

Failing to include descriptive ALT text with images is to miss out on another place to optimize your pages. Not only is this important for accessibility for vision-impaired users, but search engines simply can't "take a look" at your images and decipher the content there. They can only see your ALT text, if you've provided it, and the association they'll make with the image and your relevant content will be based exclusively on this attribute.

7. Use Flash content sparingly

Several years ago Flash hit the scene and spread like wild fire. It was neat looking, quick to download and brought interactivity and animation on the web to a new height. However, from an SEO standpoint, Flash files might as well be spacer GIFs - they're empty. Search engines are not able to index text/content within a Flash file. For this reason, while Flash can do a lot for presentation, from an accessibility and SEO standpoint it should be used very sparingly and only on non-crucial content.

and meta description tag8. Ensure that each page has a unique

tags is one of the most important on-page SEO points. Many webmasters are apparently unaware and use either duplicate tags for multiple pages or do not target search traffíc at all within this valuable tag. Run a search on a competitive keyword of your choice on Google - clíck on the first few links that show up and see what text appears in the title bar for the window. You should see right away that this is a key place to include target keywords for your pages.Optimization of

9. Make sure that important page elements are HTML

The simple fact to keep in mind when optimizing a page is that the crawlers are basically only looking at your source code. Anything you've put together in a Flash movie, an image or any other multimedia component is likely to be invisible to search engines. With that in mind it should be clear that the most important elements of your page, where the heart of your content will lie, should be presented in clean, standards-compliant and optimized HTML source code.

10. Be sure to target keywords in your page content

Some webmasters publish their pages in hopes that they will rank well for competitive keywords within their topic or niche. However, this will simply nevër happen unless you include your target keywords in the page content. This means creating well-optimized content that mentions these keywords frequently without triggering sp@m filters. Any way you cut it you're going to need to do some writing - if you don't like doing it yourself it's a good idea to hire a professional copy writer. Simply put: without relevant content that mentions your target keywords you will not rank well.

11. Don't use frames

There is still some debate as to whether frames are absolutely horrible for SEO or whether they are simply just not the best choice. Is there really a difference? Either way, you probably don't want to use frames. Crawlers can have trouble getting through to your content and effectively indexing individual pages, for one thing. For another, most functionality that the use of frames allows is easily duplicated using proper CSS coding. There is still some use for a frames-based layout, but it is still better to avoid it if at all possible.

12. Make sure that your server is returning a 404 error code for unfound pages

We've all seen it. We're browsing around at a new or familiar site, clicking links and reading content, when we get the infamous blank screen that reads "404 page not found" error. While broken links that point to these pages should definitely be avoided you also don't want to create a "custom error page" to replace this page. Why? Well, it's simple: if you generate a custom error page, crawlers can spend time following broken links that they won't know are broken. A 404 error page is easily recognizable, and search engine crawlers are programmed to stop following links that generate this page. If crawlers end up in a section of your site that is down through an old link that you missed, they might not spend the time to index the rest of your site.

13. Ensure that crawlers will not fall into infinite loops

Many webmasters see fit to include scripting languages, such as Perl, Php and Asp to add interactive functionality to their web pages. Whether for a calendar system, a forum, eCommerce functionality for an online store, etc. scripting is used quite frequently on the internet. However, what some webmasters don't realize is that unless they use robots.txt files or take other preventative measures search engine crawlers can fall into what are called "infinite loops" in their pages. Imagine, if you will, a scrípt that allows a webmaster to add a calendar to one of his pages. Now, any programmer worth his salt would base this scrípt on calculations - it would auto-generate each page based on the previous month and a formula to determine how the days and dates would fall. That scrípt, depending on sophistication, could plausibly extend infinitely into the past or future. Now think of the way a crawler works - it follows links, indexes what it finds, and follows more links. What's to stop a crawler from clicking "next month" in a calendar scrípt an infinite number of times? Nothing - well, almost nothing. Crawlers are well-built programs that need to run efficiently. As such they are built to recognize when they've run into an "infinite loop" situation like this, and they will simply stop indexing pages at a site that is flagged for this error.

5 Secret Benefits That Bloggers Love And Enjoy

Thanks to [Copyright 2005 Benjamin Scott]

1: Building Trust Relationships

Blogging allows bloggers to share their expertise and knowledge with a very large audience. Building a loyal audience is something that every small business owner would love to accomplish and bloggers are able to do this by simply sharing their thoughts using their business blogs. Building a community that trusts you and follows your blog updates on a daily basis is one of the key ingredients that hundreds of bloggers are using in their business.

2: Easy To Publish

Blog software is simple to use. With the push of a few buttons you can post your thoughts, link to resources and publish your blog. Blog software companies provide bloggers with all the tools necessary to get started. Bloggers can update their blogs much quicker than a website which usually requires contacting a web designer or uploading yourself.

3: Search Engine Traffic

One of the greatest benefits that bloggers receive is search engine traffic. Search engines love to spider pages that contain quality content and are updated with fresh content on a regular basis. Smart bloggers optimize their blogs by keeping their content focused on a specific niche.

4: Cost Effective

Blogging is a low cost alternative to having a web presence. Blogging has given small business owners the opportunity to create a web presence without the time to learn html or the income to hire a web designer. Blogging is quickly growing with popularity as an inexpensive method to get the


name of your business out on the internet. Gone are the days of having to come up with a large investment to create a web presence.

5 Spam Free

With Spam problems and email filters creating a huge challenge for email marketers to publish their newsletters, bloggers are now using blogs as an additional option to communicate with their subscribers. The advantage of using blogs is that you don't have to worry about spam and email filters because your message will be delivered by using RSS (Really Simple Syndication). You can use these syndicated RSS "feeds" to display the latest news from major newspapers, for example, on your own web site or read them on other sites collecting these feeds. There are special programs and web-based services called "RSS feed readers" or "RSS aggregators" that, given the URL of an RSS feed will fetch the latest headlines periodically and let you read them comfortably and efficiently.

In Closing...

If you are looking for another source of traffic that is cost effective, spam free, search engine friendly, and perfect for building relationships, start publishing your own blog today. Once you get started, you too will experience the secret benefits that bloggers love and enjoy.

About the Author

Benjamin Scott operates a successful internet business working from his home personal computer. To learn how to duplicate his success and earn multiple streams of income using the internet take a FREE course at: http://www.eazyhomebusiness.com/ Copyright © 2005 Benjamin Scott

What's the Story on Page Rank?

A lot of website owners are upset or puzzled when their website's Google PageRank goes down or does not rise. Is it worth losing any sleep over changes in that green line and number that appear in a Google tool bar at the top of your browser? I think that excessive worry or thought about PageRank is not constructive, and it is better to put it all in perspective by taking a rational look at what PageRank is and what it is not.

First of all the concept behind PageRank is indeed at the heart of Google's ranking process. The Google founders came from academia and they noticed that in many academic documents some sources were continually cited. They reasoned that if a particular document such as a book or research paper was mentioned in many places then it must be important. They applied this to the web and assumed that if one website links to another it is in fact, giving a "vote" for that site. A website that has many incoming links must have a certain degree of importance. In the current Google algorithm the quantity and quality of incoming links is certainly a factor in deciding the ranking of a particular website for any given search-query.

Think about it. In the early days of the web people would build websites and then they would tell their visitors to chëck out other "cool" sites and they would link to these sites. This is the process of natural linking and it still goes on. If you really have good content, people will link to you without letting you know. Similarly, if your name is Bob Dylan and your website is www.bobdylan.com, thousands of people will link to you without you having to send a cheesy email begging for a link.

Various government agencies, educational institutions, established companies and anyone else who is "big" in the "real world" is likely to also be big on the Internet simply by virtue of their previous fame and accomplishment. Google's ranking system took this into consideration and this is one of the reasons why Google is currently the number one search engine. It gives better results and that is why people use it.

But, does that mean that only the big players can be seen on the net? Far from it. While there is a difference between one guy working in his house with one computer and a corporate giant with a whole staff, and this is indeed reflected in rankings, the Internet provides a much leveler playing field than in yesteryear. Prior to 1995, it would have been very hard for someone to spread their news and views far and wide as bloggers do today. It costs millíons of dollars to publish a daily newspaper or to print and circulate a magazine, but it costs far less to publish a website or a blog, and lots of "little guys" have taken advantage of the power of the Internet.

But what about PageRank, how much of it do I really need to get my site noticed? For those who are not familiar with the PageRank system. Google supplies a tool bar which you can download and install on your browser. If you make a complete installation with all the advanced features, then every time you open a new website you will see a green and white bar with the label PageRank. Put your mouse on the bar and you will see a number from 0 to 10. If a website is not indexed by Google or banned by Google, the bar may be grey or all white.

But what do the numbers mean? I had a client who was worried about his number 3 PageRank figure and based on my observation I answered him with my unofficial view on the rankings. Here is how I currently see it:

PageRank 0-2 shows that a site does not have many links and needs work, However, and this a big "however," it may not really affect your search engine rankings. I have a client with a page rank of 2 and his site ranks well, even number one, for several search terms in a fairly competitive industrial category. So PageRank is not everything; it may have an impact on your rankings and traffíc, but in some cases it may not matter. In any case if you have a PageRank of 0-2, you can work on it through proper link building activity which I will explain at the end of the article.

PageRank 3 can be OK in some cases but in highly competitive industries you should work to improve it.

PageRank 4 is quite a normal number and indicates that you have enough links in either quantity or quality to make your site competitive.

PageRank 5 indicates that a site has many links or links from authoritative sites, and that Google has good "trust" in the site. It is a respectable and attainable PageRank.

PageRank 6 is very difficult to attain. This rank indicates that the site has many links and links from respected places. Remember the example of www.bobdylan.com, which I mentioned above; it has a PageRank 6, so you can get an idea of the difficulty involved.

PageRank 7-10 is usually earned by large and established institutions or websites which have tremendous authority, due to the quantity and quality of the incoming links. It is extremely difficult to attain this ranking. You really have to be special to get it.

So, don't worry excessively about PageRank. First look at your traffíc, then look at your salës and finally at your bottom line. They are the important numbers to watch. If you want to íncrease your traffíc and also PageRank, then here are a few steps that you can take:

1. Add content to your website. Make your website so good and so useful that people will link to you without you asking for a link.

2. Write articles and get them published on other websites and blogs with a link back to your site.

3. Distribute online press releases

4. Judiciously exchange links, or even better, exchange content (containing links back to your site) with other websites.

5. Get your site listed in online directories.

These efforts will certainly help you to build targeted traffíc, and they most probably will also help you to &iacutencrease your PageRank as well.

How To Use HTML Meta Tags

Want to get a top ranking in search engines? No problem! All you need to do is add a few magical "meta tags" to your web pages, and you'll skyrocket to the top of the listings.

If only it were so easy. Let's make it clear:

  • Meta tags are not a magic solution.
  • Meta tags are not a magic solution.
  • Meta tags are not a magic solution.

Meta tags have never been a guaranteed way to gain a top ranking on crawler-based search engines. Today, the most valuable feature they offer the web site owner is the ability to control to some degree how their web pages are described by some search engines. They also offer the ability to prevent pages from being indexed at all. This page explores these and other meta tag-related features in more depth.

Meta Tag Overview


What are meta tags? They are information inserted into the "head" area of your web pages. Other than the title tag (explained below), information in the head area of your web pages is not seen by those viewing your pages in browsers. Instead, meta information in this area is used to communicate information that a human visitor may not be concerned with. Meta tags, for example, can tell a browser what "character set" to use or whether a web page has self-rated itself in terms of adult content.

Let's review two common types of meta tags, and then we'll discuss exactly how they are used in more depth:

In the example above, you can see the beginning of the page's "head" area as noted by the HEAD tag -- it ends at the portion shown as /HEAD.

Meta tags go in between the "opening" and "closing" HEAD tags. Shown in the example is a TITLE tag, then a META DESCRIPTION tag, then a META KEYWORDS tag. Let's talk about what these do.


The Title Tag


The HTML title tag isn't really a meta tag, but it's worth discussing in relation to them. Whatever text you place in the title tag (between the TITLE and /TITLE portions as shown in the example) will appear in the reverse bar of someone's browser when they view the web page. For instance, within the title tag of this page that you are reading is this text:

How To Use HTML Meta Tags

If you look at the reverse bar in your browser, then you should see that text being used, similar to this:

Some browsers also supplement whatever you put in the title tag by adding their own name, as Microsoft Internet Explorer is doing in the graphic above.

The title tag text is also used to describe your page when someone adds it to their "Favorites" or "Bookmarks" lists. For instance, if you added this page to your Favorites in Internet Explorer, it would show up like this:

How did that little Search Engine Watch logo also show up? Everyone always asks. The article below provides more help:

Creating Your Own Favicon.ico Icon For IE5
Web Developer's Journal, March 7, 2000
http://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/articles/favicon.html

But what about search engines! The title tag is crucial for them. The text you use in the title tag is one of the most important factors in how a search engine may decide to rank your web page (see the Search Engine Placement Tips section for more details). In addition, all major crawlers will use the text of your title tag as the text they use for the title of your page in your listings.

For example, this is how Ask lists the page you are reading:


You can see that the text, "How To Use HTML Meta Tags," is used as the hyperlinked title of this page's listed in Ask's results.

In review, think about the key terms you'd like your page to be found for in crawler-based search engines, and then incorporate those terms into your title tag in short, descriptive fashion. That text will then be used as your title in crawler-based search engines, as well as the title in bookmarks, and in browser reverse bars.

The Meta Description Tag

The meta description tag allows you to influence the description of your page in the crawlers that support the tag (these are listed on the Search Engine Features page).

Look back at the example of a meta tag. See the first meta tag shown, the one that says "name=description"? That's the meta description tag. The text you want to be shown as your description goes between the quotation marks after the "content=" portion of the tag. Generally, 200 to 250 characters may be indexed, although only a smaller portion of this amount may be displayed.

For instance, I would like the page you are reading to be described in a search engine's listings like this:

This tutorial explains how to use HTML meta tags, with links
to meta tag generators and builders. From SearchEngineWatch.com,
a guide to search engine submission and registration.

Will this happen? Not necessarily with every search engine, and search engines may change how they treat meta tags at any given time. For example, Google typically ignores the meta description tag and instead will automatically generate its own description for this page based on content from the page that best matches the user query. If a meta desciption is the best match for the user query, Google may show that in its results. Other search engines may support the meta description tag partially. For instance, let's see again how this page is listed in Ask:

You can see that the first portion of the page's description comes from the meta description tag, then there's an ellipse (.), and the remaining portion is drawn from the body copy of the page itself.

In review, it is worthwhile to use the meta description tag for your pages because it gives you some degree of control with various crawlers. Often, an easy way to do this is to take the first sentence or two of body copy from your web page and use that for the meta description content.

The Meta Keywords Tag

The meta keywords tag allows you to provide additional text for crawler-based search engines to index along with your body copy. How does this help you? Well, for most major crawlers, it doesn't. That's because most crawlers now ignore the tag. The few supporting it can be found on the Search Engine Features page.

The meta keywords tag is sometimes useful as a way to reinforce the terms you think a page is important for the few crawlers that may support it, now or in the future. For instance, if you had a page about stamp collecting -- and you say the words stamp collecting at various places in your body copy -- then mentioning the words "stamp collecting" a few times in the meta keywords tag might help boost your page a bit higher for those words.

Remember, if you don't use the words "stamp collecting" on the page at all, then just adding them to the meta keywords tag is extremely unlikely to help the page rank well for the term. The text in the meta keywords tag, for the few crawlers that support it, works in conjunction with the text in your body copy.

The meta keyword tag is also sometimes useful as a way to help your page come up for synonyms or unusual words that don't appear on the page itself. For instance, let's say you had a page all about the "Penny Black" stamp. You never actually say the word "collecting" on this page. By having the word in your meta keywords tag, you may help increase the odds of coming up if someone searched for "penny black stamp collecting." Of course,you would greatly increase the odds, if you just used the word "collecting" in the body copy of the page itself.

Here's another example. Let's say you have a page about horseback riding, and you've written your page using "horseback" as a single word. You realize that some people may instead search for "horse back riding," with "horse back" in their queries being two separate words. If you listed these words separately in your meta keywords tag, then, maybe for the few crawlers that support it, your page might rank better for "horse back" riding. Sadly, the best way to ensure this happening would be to write your pages using both "horseback riding" and "horse back riding" in the text -- or perhaps on some of your pages, using the single-word version on some pages and the twoword version on others.

I'm emphasizing various phrases in this article on purpose. Far too many people new to search engine optimization obsess with the meta keywords tag. Few crawlers support it. For those that do, it might! maybe! perhaps! possibly! but with no guarantee! help improve the ranking of your page. It also may very well do nothing for your page at all. In fact, repeat a particular word too often in a meta keywords tag and you could actually harm your page's chances of ranking well. Because of this, I strongly suggest that those new to search engine optimization not worry about the tag at all.

Even those who are experienced in search engine optimization may decide it is no longer worth using this tag. Search Engine Watch doesn't. Any meta keywords tags you find in the site were written in the past, when the keywords tag was more important. There's no harm in leaving up existing tags you may have written, but going forward, writing new tags probably isn't worth the trouble. The articles below explores this in more detail:

Death Of A Meta Tag
The Search Engine Report, Oct. 1, 2002

Meta Tags Revisited
The Search Engine Report, Dec. 5, 2002

Still want to use the meta keywords tag? OK. Look back at the opening example. See the second meta tag shown, the one that says "name=keywords"? That's the meta keywords tag. The keywords you want associated with your page go between the quotation marks after the "content=" portion of the tag.

FYI, in the past, when the tag was supported by other search engines, they generally indexed up to 1,000 characters of text and commas were not required.

Meta Robots Tag

One other meta tag worth mentioning is the robots tag. This lets you specify that a particular page should not be indexed by a search engine. To keep spiders out, simply add this text between your head tags on each page that you don't want indexed. The format is shown the graphic below:

You do not need to use variations of the meta robots tag to help your pages get indexed. They are unnecessary. By default, a crawler will try to index all your web pages and will try to follow links from one page to another.

Most major search engines support the meta robots tag. However, the robots.txt convention of blocking indexing is more efficient, as you don't need to add tags to each and every page. See the Search Engines Features page for more about the robots.txt file. If you do use a robots.txt file to block indexing, there is no need to also use meta robots tags.

The meta robots tag also has some extensions offered by particular search engines to prevent indexing of multimedia content. The article below talks about this in more depth and provides some links to help files. Search Engine Watch members should follow the link from the article to the members-only edition for extended help on the subject.

Image Search Faces Renewed Legal Challenge
The Search Engine Report, August 22, 2001

Other Meta Tags

There are many other meta tags that exist beyond those explored in this article. For example, if you were to view the source code of this web page, you would find "author," "channel" and "date" meta tags. These mean nothing to web-wide crawlers such as Google. They are specifically for an internal search engine used by Search Engine Watch to index its own content.

There are also "Dublin Core" meta tags. The intent is that these can be used for both "internal" search engines and web-wide ones. However, no major web-wide search engine supports these tags. More about them can be found below:

How about the meta revisit tag? This tag is not recognized by the major search engines as a method of telling them how often to automatically return. They have never supported it.

In Conclusion

Overall, just remember this. Of all the meta tags you may see out there:

  • Meta Robots: This tag enjoys full support, but you only need it if you do not want your pages indexed.

  • Meta Description: This tag enjoys much support, and it is well worth using.

  • Meta Keywords: This tag is only supported by some major crawlers and probably isn't worth the time to implement.

  • Meta Everything Else: Any other meta tag you see is ignored by the major crawlers, though they may be used by specialized search engines.

More Resources

At the bottom of this page are more resources about meta tags, including tutorials and meta tag building applications. But first.

If you've been following the "Next" buttons to read the numbered sections of the Search Engine Submission Tips guide in order, you've now reached the last page. Congratulations!

There's still more information you might find helpful, however. Please review the pages listed under the Optional But Helpful section for additional assistance with search engine marketing issues.

In addition, do consider becoming a Search Engine Watch member, for access to even more information on search engine marketing issues.

Just started learning from this page? Don't worry -- click here to go to the beginning of the guide.

Now, here are those additional meta tag resources and articles.

Meta Tag Generators, Builders and Evaluators

SiteUp's Meta-Tag Generator
This is a software-based package for Windows that creates meta tags. It is a freeware package -- no registration fee required.

Meta Tag Builder
This form allows you to create very complicated meta tags using much more than the keywords and description tags, if you wish. Note that it will place a commented credit line into the tag. This can easily be removed, if you wish.

Articles About Meta Tags

Death Of A Meta Tag
The Search Engine Report, Oct. 1, 2002

Now supported by only one major crawler-based search engine, the value of adding meta keywords tags to pages seems little worth the time. A look at how we gained and lost the meta keywords tag.

Meta Tags Revisited
The Search Engine Report, Dec. 5, 2002

Follow-up to the article above.

Web spec targets for small businesses
ZDNet, Jan. 15, 2003

Discusses a new idea for allowing small and medium sized businesses to describe themselves to search engines through meta data in XML files. Given the bad history search engines have with meta data, I think it's unlikely you'll see this be accepted.

Are search engines dead?
WDVL, June 26, 2000

A look at the RDF meta data structure and how search engines aren't using it. Why not? Experience has taught them that meta data often cannot be trusted.

The New Meta Tags Are Coming -- Or Are They?
The Search Engine Report, Dec. 4, 1997

The proposed Resource Description Framework, or RDF, would provide a new way of describing web pages via meta data. There are high hopes for what it may accomplish, but support by the search engines isn't certain. Also learn more about the Dublin Core meta tags, which may be incorporated into the system.

What Is Meta Content Framework
Search Engine Watch, June 1997

Summary of a Netscape-backed meta data proposal now outdated by the rise of RDF (see above).


Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2167931

Meta Tag Lawsuits
Page within Search Engine Watch that summarizes major lawsuits involving meta tags.

Note: the date shown on this article reflects updates provided by Claudia Bruemmer , Internet Marketing Writer and former ClickZ Managing Editor. This article was originally published by Danny



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