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HTML Quick reference

These are the tags you will need to include at the top of your document, in order to attract the attention of the major search engines.

Using META tags

Insert all meta tags in the header of your document, as follows:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Page title</TITLE>
<META name="" content="">
<META name="" content="">
</HEAD>

When submitting your site to search engines, the normal method is to add all of the tags listed below to your main index.html file in the root directory.  Do this before you submit your site.

Content type

Describes the format in which your document is written, normally text/html
<META HTTP-EQUIV="content-type: text/html; charset= ISO-8859-1">

Keywords

List any and every keyword associated with your document. Don't repeat any more than twice. Max length about
800 charcaters, but put the most important ones in the first 255 characters
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="meta tags, searching">

Description

Describe your site, in about 5-6 lines if possible. 255 character limit
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Using META tags">

Title

The title for your site - will appear as the first word in most listings
<META NAME="title" CONTENT="Using META tags">

Abstract

A brief description of the document
<META NAME="abstract" CONTENT="how to make your site easy for search engines to list">

Language

2-digit code to indicate the primary language of your site.  EN is english
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Language" CONTENT="EN">

Note: EN-GB means the real language as defined in the Oxford English Dictionary. EN-US means the pseudo-language that Microsoft speaks. EN is generally used to mean either.

Author

Author's full name and email address
<META NAME="author" CONTENT="Oliver White">

Robots

The Index tag tells search engines to index the page containing the tag.
Follow indicates they should follow all links on the page, and index those as well
<META NAME="robots" CONTENT="FOLLOW,INDEX">

Revisit

If you include this tag, the search engines are advised to revist your site after a set period of time, and update
their listing.
<META NAME="revisit-after" CONTENT="20 days">

Distribution

<META NAME="distribution" CONTENT="Global">

Link: Click here to learn more about META tagging and search engines, with the excellent SubmitCorner.com

Click here to use our on-line tools to create your own set of META tags

(Valid HTML 4.01)