What is Meta Tag
Meta tags or meta elements are used with HTML code , these are used to give a certain type of structure called metadata to a web page. When a webmasters codes their sites they can use the tags in the head area of the HTML page. Meta tags are also used quite a bit in the use of search engine optimization, this works because meta tags give information about any web page which helps spiders place the web page in the right category when they begin to index your site. A user to a site will not see the meta tags , the meta tags stay behind the scenes tucked away in the HTML document.
In recent years, experts say that these meta tags are not very effective with search engine results. In the 1990’s they had more of an influence on the bots but not so much today. The reason being back in the 1990’s bots were pretty basic but over the past 15 years or more the bots have become more complicated and have been built better by technology. This happened because webmasters were not only keyword stuffed their content but they key stuffed their meta tags in the code as well. Search engines do not like keyword stuffing in the content and nor do they like it hidden in the meta tags.
This is not to say that you cannot use meta tags to keyword because you can, but you cannot use them to black hat search engine optimization or keyword stuff. Meta keyword tags can also be used to help your web pages come up for words that have the same meaning as the word you have. For example, if you have a dog site and you want to meta keyword you can use the term canine or pooch or anything that is synonymous with the word dog.
You can also use your meta tags to keep the bots from scanning certain pages of your site. Under the head in the code , next to the title you can type in Page I Don’t Want Search Engines to See, the meta name is “ Robots” Content”= NO INDEX. Then a bot will skip over the page. The bots and the search engines sometimes will penalize a site if they believe the site has something to hide because it does not want these pages seen.
Meta tags are also used for redirecting a web page, these are called meta refresh tags. By using your meta tags you can point the browser to refresh a web page of your choice to another URL automatically. Some webmasters do not like this for the fact that they say the back button does not perform its function as well. When a user is using the Internet Explorer they can shut off the meta refresh but some browsers such as Safari, Opera, Mozilla and Firefox have corrected that problem and meta refresh tags are no longer a problem.
Meta tags are so useful that some online companies have come up with their own meta tag analyzer. These tools were designed to help webmasters check to see if their meta tags are helpful in getting indexed. Sites like Widexl.com has a meta tag analyzer that is free to use. Check in the search engines you will have many results for this topic. The goal is to have the best website on the world wide web and webmasters believe that meta tags are the way to do that. They can be a huge factor but they must work in conjunction with the other aspects of the site.