Metatags should appear in the header section of the HTML code of each web page. The top of the html code should look like this:
<HTML>
Generator - indicates the software used to create the web page and is used by some software brands to measure how popular their product is.
Title - this gives the page a name to identify it on search engines, and in your bookmarks or favorites list. The most common title is.....you guessed it No Title. Many sites use the companies business name in the metatags which is fine to get the site found on a search for Smith Bros & Sons, but not if you want to be found by new customers who are searching for generic products or services. It is useful to include your favorite keywords in your title, preferably at the start, as this carries lots of weight when it comes to ranking a site with search engines.
Description - These metatags should contain your description of your web page. This is generally what people see when your page is listed in search results. Try to make the description enticing to encourage viewers to click on your link. Again include your main keywords within the description metatags.
Keyword - These metatags are where you list those words or terms you want to be found under. Try to keep the list short and seperate each word or phrase with a comma. Consider using foreign language variations of your main keywords to attract searches from non-English speaking clients. Do not repeat keywords more than twice as this can be considered spamming by some engines.
Robots - Instructions for search engine spiders to either look at (index) or not (noindex) and to follow the links on the page (follow) or not (nofollow).
Copyright - Used to identify the copyright holders of the web page.
Revisit - Instructs proxy servers to re-cache your page after the specified time. Useful if your page content changes regularly. These metatags don't tell search engine spiders to come back, they do that when good and ready.
Refresh - Instructs browsers to redirect to another page. This happens after a number of seconds specified in the content value. Setting that value to "0" will create an instant redirect. Beware search engines don't like these refresh tags.
Expires - This tag instructs the visitors cache to refresh after the number of days indicated in the content value. This can be set to "0" if you have regularily updated content and want each visitor to be presented with the most up to date content.
Rating - This tag assigns a content rating to the page and can be set to general, 14 years, restricted or mature.
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Giant advertising balloons</TITLE>
<META NAME="KEYWORDS"
CONTENT="Giant,advertising,balloons">
<META NAME="DESCRIPTION"
CONTENT="Giant advertising balloons really get your products noticed. Product replicas for promotional and marketing campaigns. 123 Bounce!">
<META NAME="AUTHOR" CONTENT="Simon Conroy, Acorn Internet">
</HEAD>
<META NAME="generator" CONTENT="program name and version">
<TITLE>Your title here</TITLE>
<META NAME="DESCRIPTION"
CONTENT="Your description here">
<META NAME="KEYWORDS"
CONTENT="Your keywords here, keyword1,keyword2">
<META NAME="AUTHOR" CONTENT="Your name here">
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="index,follow">
or <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="noindex,follow">
or <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="index,nofollow">
or <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="noindex,nofollow">
<META NAME="copyright" CONTENT="This page and its contents
are copyright 1998-1999 by Simon Conroy. All Rights Reserved>
<META NAME="REVISIT-AFTER" CONTENT="15 days">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" CONTENT="5; url=yourpage.html">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="expires" CONTENT="15">
<META NAME="rating" CONTENT="general">
(c) 1999 Acorn Internet
.