Standard Header TAGS For Your Website

Whether coding for search engines or not, there are certain standard tags that should be included in your HTML code. Keep in mind that META Tags are not the answer to getting the top rankings (i.e. different search engines use or ignore certain tags based on their ranking algorithms), but still they are important to your success (see this article from the Search Engine Watch website). All META tags should be placed in the HEAD section of an HTML page as shown in the following example:

The standard HEADER Tags you should consider including are:

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>PAGE TITLE GOES HERE</TITLE>
<META name="AUTHOR" content="AUTHOR NAME GOES HERE">
<META name="TEAM" content="TEAM NAME GOES HERE">
<META name="OWNER" content="OWNER NAME GOES HERE">
<META name="COPYRIGHT" CONTENT="© 20xx YOUR NAME GOES HERE">
<META name="REVISION" content="1; 1st REVISION DATE GOES HERE">
<META name="REVISION" content="2; 2nd REVISION DATE GOES HERE">
<META name=”KEYWORDS” content= "KEYWORDS GO HERE">
<META name=”DESCRIPTION” content= "DESCRIPTION GOES HERE">
<META name=”ABSTRACT” content= "ABSTRACT GOES HERE">
<META name=”RATING” content=”CONTENT TYPE GOES HERE”>
<META name=”ROBOTS” content=”INDEX”>
<META name=”ROBOTS” content=”FOLLOW”>
<META name=”ROBOTS” content=”ALL” >
</HEAD>
<BODY>

OR if you don’t want your page indexed:

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>PAGE TITLE GOES HERE</TITLE>
<META name="AUTHOR" content="AUTHOR NAME GOES HERE">
<META name="TEAM" content="TEAM NAME GOES HERE">
<META name="OWNER" content="OWNER NAME GOES HERE">
<META name="COPYRIGHT" content="© 2006 YOUR NAME GOES HERE">
<META name="REVISION" content="1; 1st REVISION DATE GOES HERE">
<META name="REVISION" content="2; 2nd REVISION DATE GOES HERE">
<META name=”KEYWORDS” content= "KEYWORDS GO HERE">
<META name=”DESCRIPTION” content= "DESCRIPTION GOES HERE">
<META name=”ABSTRACT” content= "ABSTRACT GOES HERE">
<META name=”RATING” content=”CONTENT TYPE GOES HERE”>
<META name=”ROBOTS” content=”NOINDEX”>
<META name=”ROBOTS” content=”NOFOLLOW”>
</HEAD>
<BODY>

Here’s an explanation and example of each tag type:

TITLE Tag

<TITLE>PAGE TITLE GOES HERE</TITLE>

This command identifies the Title of the current page. A suggested format might be:

<TITLE>Website Name – Page Title</TITLE>

(i.e. <TITLE>Scent of Success – META Tag Examples</TITLE> )

AUTHOR Tag

This command identifies the author of the current page.

(i.e. <META name="AUTHOR" content="John Hounschell"> )

TEAM Tag

If page development was by a team, the team name is identified here.

(i.e. <META name=" TEAM " content="Dev Team 1"> )

OWNER Tag

This command identifies the owner of the current page.

(i.e. <META name="OWNER" content="John Hounschell – Scent of Success"> )

COPYRIGHT Tag

This command identifies the copyright information for the current page.

(i.e. <META name="COPYRIGHT" CONTENT="© 20xx Scent of Success"> )

REVISION Tag

This command identifies the revision history for the current page.

(i.e. <META name="REVISION" content="1; June 1 1999"> )
(i.e. <META name="REVISION" content="2; August 4 1999"> )

KEYWORDS Tag

This command identifies the relevant keywords (no more that 25 words or phrases) for the current page that search engines will use (with the actual page content and abstract) as one criteria in the determination of page relevance.

(i.e. <META name=”KEYWORDS” content= "eBay success, Search Engines, tags, meta, keywords"> )

DESCRIPTION Tag

This command provides a description (no more that 200-250 characters) for the current page that search engines will use (with the actual page content and abstract) as one criteria in the determination of page relevance.

(i.e. <META name=”DESCRIPTION” content= "Whether coding for search engines or not, there are certain standard tags that should be included in your HTML code. While META Tags are not the answer to getting the top rankings, they are still important to your success. This site describes the use of must use META Tags for your web pages."> )

ABSTRACT Tag

The Abstract META tag is very similar to the description Meta tag, except it’s an abstraction or a brief summary of the description META tag.

(i.e. <META name=”ABSTRACT” content= "META Tags are an important first step for your search engine friendly code. This site describes the use of must use META Tags for your web pages."> )

RATING Tag

The Rating Tag identifies the age appropriate rating of your website. Some search engine’s require that you specify a rating when submitting to their site, and if your site is inappropriate for certain age groups (i.e. MATURE or RESTRICTED), that the RATING tag be included in the pages being submitted for indexing. Following is a breakdown of the textual content for the rating level:

RATING	DEFINITION
Safe For Kids	G
14 Years	PG-13
General	Roughly equivalent to PG
Mature	R rated more or less
Restricted	X rated

Choose one of the following for each page:

(i.e. <META name=”RATING” content=”Safe For Kids”> )
(i.e. <META name=”RATING” content=”14 Years”> )
(i.e. <META name=”RATING” content=”General”> )
(i.e. <META name=”RATING” content=”Mature”> )
(i.e. <META name=”RATING” content=”Restricted”> )

ROBOTS Tag

Index & Follow - While not necessary (since once instructed a robot will try to index all pages), this command instructs robots to index the page they are on and follow all links on that page.

<META name=”ROBOTS” content=”INDEX”>
<META name=”ROBOTS” content=”FOLLOW”>

All - While not necessary (since once instructed a robot will try to index all pages), this command instructs robots to index everything.

<META name=”ROBOTS” content=”ALL” >

The following tag was at one time reputed to cause search engines to return to your site and index it in the timeframe indicated, however, current search engine algorithms no longer use this tag so it is not necessary.

(i.e. <META name=”REVISIT-AFTER” content="7 days"> )

If you DO NOT want your site indexed, you would use the following tag:

<META name=” ROBOTS” content=”NONE” >