<META>
Metatags are a way for you to define your web page and web site to the
outside world. You can declare the title, keywords and description, which
help your placement in search engines. In addition, you can specify who
owns the copyright, how often the page is to be visited by search engines
and many other useful pieces of information. (See
Meta-Tags
page for our Metatag creation form to easily create your own Metatags for
your web site)
There are two type of Metatags.
| HTTP-EQUIV |
These tags are the
equivalent of http headers. When you click on a hyperlink which beings
with http:// you are asking that a page be transferred to your browser
using the http protocol. What happens is the following.
- The web server makes sure the page exists
- It sends back an http header block which contains information
about the page
- It sends the page itself.
What HTTP-EQUIV Metatags do is define additional information to be
sent to the browser in the http header. This gives the web site
creator additional control over this data. |
| NAME |
The NAME attribute is used to
define information which is to be referenced outside of the document.
This includes data passed to search engines and directories, spiders
and other entities. |
Metatags must be placed between the <HEAD> and </HEAD> tags, before the
<BODY> tag. On framed pages, be sure and include the Metatags on the
frameset page and the framed pages.
A special note about legality regarding Metatags. Some people have
"borrowed" someone else's Metatags and have been successfully sued in the
courts. In general, this seems to have involved the inclusion of
trademarked keywords, but in theory it would be possible to copyright a
set of keywords. It is best to be sure and create your own descriptions
and keywords.
| http-equiv="name" content="value" |
|
Specifies data so that an HTTP (web) server can
include additional data in it's header fields. HTTP headers are
defined in RFC1945 (HTTP/1.0) and RFC2068 (HTTP/1.1). May be one of
the following.
| Value |
Description and example |
|
content-language |
Specifies the language. |
|
content-script-type |
Defines scripting language used. |
|
content-style-type |
Defines type of style sheets used.
|
|
content-type |
Specifies type of data within
document. |
|
expires |
Expiration date of the document. |
|
ext-cache |
Define Netscape external cache. |
|
imagetoolbar |
This turns off Internet Explorer's
image toolbar that appears when you hover over an image |
|
page-enter |
Specifies the transition effect that
is to be performed when the page is loaded. |
|
page-exit |
Specifies the transition effect that
is to be performed when the page is unloaded. |
|
pics-label |
Includes rating information so
content filters can do their job. |
|
pragma |
Do not locally cache documents. |
|
refresh |
Indicates the document displays for a
specified amount of time before switching to a new URL. |
|
set-cookie |
Sets the name and value
for a persistent cookie. |
|
site-enter |
Specifies the transition effect that
is to be performed when the site is loaded. |
|
site-exit |
Specifies the transition effect that
is to be performed when the site is unloaded. |
|
window-target |
Specifies the name of the
frame for the current page. |
|
| name="value" |
|
Name and description of the element that is being set.
| Value |
Description and example |
|
abstract |
Define a secondary description. |
|
author |
Records the name of the author of the
document. |
|
classification |
Classify the site into the
appropriate category. |
|
copyright |
Used to include copyright information
in the document. |
|
description |
Some search engines pick up this
description to show with the results of searches. |
|
distribution |
Declares whether a document is
available to the web or on an intranet. |
|
doc-class |
Indicates completion status of
document. |
|
doc-rights |
Indicates copyright status of
document. |
|
doc-type |
Specifies type of document. |
|
expires |
Expiration date of the document. |
|
generator |
The name of the program
that created the document. |
|
googlebot |
Define pages to be
excluded from
googebot indexing. |
|
keywords |
Inform search engines
what your web site or page is about. |
|
MSSmartTagsPreventParsing |
Use this tag to prevent
any Microsoft product from automatically generating smart tags. |
|
owner |
Define the owner of the
page or site. |
|
progid |
|
|
rating |
A simple rating for a
site. |
|
refresh |
Indicates the document
displays for a specified amount of time before switching to a new
URL. |
|
reply-to |
Email address of contact
for document. |
|
resource-type |
Indicates the type of web
resource. |
|
revisit-after |
Defines how often search
engine spiders should revisit your site. |
|
robots |
Define pages to be
excluded from robot indexing. |
|
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us">
<meta http-equiv="PICS-Label" content='(PICS-1.1
"http://www.rsac.org/ratingsv01.html" l gen false comment
"RSACi North America Server" for "http://internet-tips.net" on
"2000.03.14T23:37-0800" r (n 0 s 0 v 0 l 0))'>
<meta http-equiv="PICS-Label" content='(PICS-1.1
"http://www.classify.org/safesurf/" l r (SS~~000 1))'>
<meta name="author" content="Richard G. Lowe, Jr.">
<meta name="copyright" content="Copyright © 1999-2001 Richard Lowe
and Claudia Arevalo-Lowe, All Rights Reserved">
<meta name="description" content="HTML tag reference guide">
<meta name="distribution" content="GLOBAL">
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 4.0">
<meta name="keywords" content="HTML hypertext markup language web pages">
<meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">
<meta name="rating" content="GENERAL">
<meta name="resource-type" content="document">
<meta name="revisit-after" content="20 Days">
<meta name="ROBOTS" content="ALL">
|
A complex series of Metatags precisely defines what the
document is all about.
  
|