Meta tags

[Tony Cooper]

Meta tags, as far as I can tell, are only used to embed keywords and
descriptions to facilitate search engines.

I don't put anything up that I particularly want to be located by a
search engine. Is there any other reason that I should include any
information in a meta tag?

 

[Steve R.]

Tony Cooper wrote in message ...

I don't put anything up that I particularly want to be located by a
search engine.

You can safely leave out that information.

However if you've got a website with good textual content (not text as
gifs) then you *will* be picked up by a search engine if some of your
content is what those pesky www searchers are looking for :~)

 

[Chet]

| Meta tags, as far as I can tell, are only used to embed
keywords and
| descriptions to facilitate search engines.
|
| I don't put anything up that I particularly want to be located
by a
| search engine. Is there any other reason that I should include
any
| information in a meta tag?
|

There are many more meta tags besides the keywords and
description. You don't put up anything you want to found by the
search engines, do you include a noindex meta tag? Or a
robots.txt?

Check out Vancouver Webpages for more info on meta tags:

http://vancouver-webpages.com/META/

Here's what I include on most pages:

<meta name="author" content="authors name and info">
<meta name="classification" content="Type of Content Here">
<meta name="copyright" content="copyright info, company name, all
rights reserved">
<meta name="distribution" content="global">
<meta name="generator" content="notepad">
<meta name="language" content="en-us">
<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="TRUE">
<meta name="rating" content="general">
<meta name="resource-type" content="document">
<meta name="robots" content="index,follow">
<meta name="revisit" content="30 days">
<meta name="subject" content="Type of Subject Here">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta http-equiv="Cache-Control" content="no-cache">
<meta http-equiv="Expires" content="Fri, 31 Dec 1999 23:59:59
GMT">
<meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache">

hth

 

[SpaceGirl]

| Meta tags, as far as I can tell, are only used to embed
keywords and
| descriptions to facilitate search engines.
|
| I don't put anything up that I particularly want to be located
by a
| search engine. Is there any other reason that I should include
any
| information in a meta tag?
|

There are many more meta tags besides the keywords and
description. You don't put up anything you want to found by the
search engines, do you include a noindex meta tag? Or a
robots.txt?

Check out Vancouver Webpages for more info on meta tags:

http://vancouver-webpages.com/META/

Here's what I include on most pages:

<meta name="author" content="authors name and info">
<meta name="classification" content="Type of Content Here">
<meta name="copyright" content="copyright info, company name, all
rights reserved">
<meta name="distribution" content="global">
<meta name="generator" content="notepad">
<meta name="language" content="en-us">
<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="TRUE">
<meta name="rating" content="general">
<meta name="resource-type" content="document">
<meta name="robots" content="index,follow">
<meta name="revisit" content="30 days">
<meta name="subject" content="Type of Subject Here">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta http-equiv="Cache-Control" content="no-cache">
<meta http-equiv="Expires" content="Fri, 31 Dec 1999 23:59:59
GMT">
<meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache">

Here's the block from the top of one of our sites:


<!--

the garbage fan site || v9 ||
copyright (c) digital:harmony 1997-2004 (edinburgh scotland)
This code must not be duplicated
Site Version: 9.01.192 @ 14/02/2004 11:34

//-->

<META NAME="description" lang="en" content="The Ultimate Fan Site for the
pop group GARBAGE, featuring Shirley Manson">
<META NAME="keywords" lang="en" content="Music, Music Fans, Fansite,
Garbage, BeautifulGarbage, Shirley Manson, Butch Vig, Steve Marker, Duke
Erikson, Version 2.0, Cherry Lips, Androgyny, Push It, Stupid Girl, Milk,
Only Happy When it Rains, When I Grow Up, Breaking Up The Girl, Edinburgh,
Stockbridge, Mussleburgh, Scotland, Redhead, Angelfish, Goodbye Mr
Mackenzie, Firetown, The Queen, Queen Helen, Live Music, Gigs, Tour">
<META NAME="resource-type" CONTENT="document">
<META NAME="revisit-after" CONTENT="2 days">
<META NAME="classification" CONTENT="Music & Entertainment">
<meta name="robots" content="index,follow">
<META NAME="distribution" CONTENT="Global">
<META NAME="rating" CONTENT="General">
<META NAME="copyright" CONTENT="digital:harmony 1997-2004">
<META NAME="author" CONTENT="digital:harmony, Edinburgh, Scotland">
<META NAME="language" CONTENT="English">
<META name="Publisher" content="digital:harmony">
<META name="Publisher-Email" content="(e-mail address removed)">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="imagetoolbar" CONTENT="no">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="MSThemeCompatible" Content="No">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<LINK REL="ToC" href="http://www.subhuman.net/index.asp">
<LINK REL="Home" href="http://www.subhuman.net/index.asp">

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

There are many more meta tags besides the keywords and
description.

Mostly equally useless, or worse.

You don't put up anything you want to found by the
search engines, do you include a noindex meta tag? Or a
robots.txt?

I don't think the expressed purpose was to specifically exclude search
engines.

Check out Vancouver Webpages for more info on meta tags:

A dated collection of mixed factoids, facts, and guesses.

Here's what I include on most pages:

What do you expect the effect to be, apart from increased file size?

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=iso-8859-1">

That's probably the only useful meta tag in your sample. For some odd
reason, people often include it even when it does not correspond to the
actual encoding used.

<meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache">

Worse than useless. And you say it three times in different wordings.
Let me guess - you have absolutely no idea of what caches are and how
they work?

 

[Tony Cooper]

| Meta tags, as far as I can tell, are only used to embed
keywords and
| descriptions to facilitate search engines.
|
| I don't put anything up that I particularly want to be located
by a
| search engine. Is there any other reason that I should include
any
| information in a meta tag?
|

There are many more meta tags besides the keywords and
description. You don't put up anything you want to found by the
search engines, do you include a noindex meta tag? Or a
robots.txt?

I guess I worded this ambiguously. I don't want to avoid being found
on a search engine; I just have no interest in being found on a search
engine. Think of a site with photographs and other family information
that is of interest only to people that I send the url to. It's not a
problem if anyone else stumbles across it. It's just not my intent.

The answers, though, seem to indicate that there's no reason for me to
include anything in meta tags. Thanks.

 

[Chet]

|
| > There are many more meta tags besides the keywords and
| > description.
|
| Mostly equally useless, or worse.

I agree, nowadays most are worthless.

| > You don't put up anything you want to found by the
| > search engines, do you include a noindex meta tag? Or a
| > robots.txt?
|
| I don't think the expressed purpose was to specifically exclude
search
| engines.

I took the OP's meaning differently, I guess. I thought he was
wondering if there was anyway to prevent a search engine from
indexing his page.

| > Check out Vancouver Webpages for more info on meta tags:
|
| A dated collection of mixed factoids, facts, and guesses.
|
| > Here's what I include on most pages:
|
| What do you expect the effect to be, apart from increased file
size?

I may be wrong, but I believe there are search engines that still
utilize the index,follow and noindex meta tags. Some may even
still index the keywords and descriptions.

| > <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
| > charset=iso-8859-1">
|
| That's probably the only useful meta tag in your sample. For
some odd
| reason, people often include it even when it does not
correspond to the
| actual encoding used.

You're probably right, without it a page won't valid, although
most pages on the Internet may fall into this non-validating
category!

| > <meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache">
|
| Worse than useless. And you say it three times in different
wordings.
| Let me guess - you have absolutely no idea of what caches are
and how
| they work?

Yup, I said it three times!!

<meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache">

Pragma no-cache is used to prevent IE clients from caching the
page.

<meta http-equiv="Cache-Control" content="no-cache">

Cache-Control is used for caching mechanisms along the
request-response route.

<meta http-equiv="Expires" content="Fri, 31 Dec 1999 23:59:59

GMT">
HTTP 1.0 will treat an Expires that is less or equal to the
response date as being the same as no-cache.

| --
| Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
| Pages about Web authoring:
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html
|

Sorry I offended you so much with my reply to the OP. And I'm not
quite as stupid as you think I am.

You know, you can always killfile me.

 

[David Hasather]

| > <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
| > charset=iso-8859-1">
|
| That's probably the only useful meta tag in your sample. For some odd
| reason, people often include it even when it does not correspond to the
| actual encoding used.

You're probably right, without it a page won't valid

Depends. If the server sends the information already, it's not needed.

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

| Mostly equally useless, or worse.

I agree, nowadays most are worthless.

Or worse. Giving wrong metadata usually causes no harm today, since so
few programs use metadata anyway, but it might hurt in future.

I thought he was
wondering if there was anyway to prevent a search engine from
indexing his page.

Well, for that thing the practical method would be the use of a meta
tag. But the examples you gave didn't include such a tag - in fact, it
included a tag that explicitly says "welcome, indexing robots! take
anything you can" (which is the default anyway, but still).

I may be wrong, but I believe there are search engines that still
utilize the index,follow and noindex meta tags.

That's a correct guess. But saying <meta name="robots"
content="index,follow"> is pointless since it's the default, and
what it means is the opposite of what you thought the OP meant.

Some may even
still index the keywords and descriptions.

Maybe. With positive or negative weights.

| > <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
| > charset=iso-8859-1">
|
| That's probably the only useful meta tag in your sample. For some
| odd reason, people often include it even when it does not
| correspond to the actual encoding used.

You're probably right, without it a page won't valid,

It has nothing to do with validity. It's simply a common and officially
recognized trick of overcoming some server-side problems.

| Worse than useless. And you say it three times in different
| wordings. Let me guess - you have absolutely no idea of what
| caches are and how they work?

Yup, I said it three times!!

That's what I thought. So this confirms that you have absolutely no
idea of what caches are and how they work, right?

Pragma no-cache is used to prevent IE clients from caching the
page.

Well, that's not completely wrong. But your _goal_ of trying to prevent
caching is most probably completely wrong.

Cache-Control is used for caching mechanisms along the
request-response route.

Cool, where did you read that? Now you just need to understand what
that route is, and how nobody on the route, except perhaps the browser
at the other end, even looks at the tag, or parses HTML at all.

GMT">
HTTP 1.0 will treat an Expires that is less or equal to the
response date as being the same as no-cache.

Who cares about HTTP 1.0 these days? But most probably the poor browser
now spends a few more microseconds in processing your third way of
saying that you don't understand caches and still want to control one.

 

[David Hasather]

| > <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
| > charset=iso-8859-1">
|
| That's probably the only useful meta tag in your sample. For some odd
| reason, people often include it even when it does not correspond to the
| actual encoding used.

You're probably right, without it a page won't valid

To clear things up with my other message (which hasn't arrived yet), a
document can be valid without this information, but some validators
must have the it to be able to validate.