Meta Tags
Meta tags are used to describe an HTML document and to provide other important (and not so important) information. When most people think of Meta tags, they also think of search engine indexing, but many Meta tags can be used for other purposes such as creation date, author, distribution, document refresh, etc.
Meta tags should be placed between the <head> and </head> tags in your document. A properly formed HTML Header would look like this:
<head>
<title>My Document on Meta Tags</title>
<META name="title" content="My Document on Meta Tags">
<META name="keywords" content="Meta Tags, Meta, tags, information, KLUG, presentation">
<META name="description" content="Explains the use of Meta Tags in an HTML document">
</head>
Of course you can add many more Meta Tags to your header, but this illustrates the minimum required for proper search engine indexing.
Relying on Meta tags for proper search engine indexing is not wise as only 5 of the top 8 search engines use Meta Description tags, only 4 or 8 use Meta Keywords and only 2 of 8 use Meta tags at all to boost search ratings. Using Meta Tags is only one piece of the puzzle to proper search engine indexing.
Meta tag available (italics means user provided information)
Important for search engines
<META name="title" content="title of your document">
<META name="keywords" content="key,word,list">
<META name="description" content="Up to a paragraph of description.">
Imformational tags
The attribute NAME refers to arbitrary user-selected names
<META name="resource-type" content="document">
<META name="distribution" content=" global "|" local ">
<META name="copyright" content="Some copyright text">
<META name="author" content="Your Name and/or description">
<META NAME="revisit-after" CONTENT="31 days">
<META name="reply-to" content="your@emailaddress.com">
<META NAME="rating" CONTENT="General"> (General,Mature,Restricted,14 years)
HTTP -EQUIV Tags (for server requests, this should be included in the response headers of an HTTP request)
The attribute HTTP-EQUIV means that the value has a real equivalent header in the HTTP protocol.
<META HTTP-EQUIV=Varname CONTENT=Data> (samples below)
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Expires" CONTENT="Tue, 04 Dec 1993 21:29:02 GMT">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Keywords" CONTENT="Fred">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Reply-to" CONTENT=" penguin@linuxbox.net (Mr. Penguin)">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Keywords" CONTENT="penguin, linux">
A few "other" tags
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=ISO8859-1">
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW"> (All, Index, ,Follow, Nofollow, Noindex, Noindeximage, noimageclick)
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="3; URL= http://www.slashdot.org">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="content-language" content= "language">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma" CONTENT="no-cache">
Meta Tag Web Sites
Meta Tag Information
Meta Tag Tutorial: http://www.webdeveloper.com/html/html_metatags.html
Dictionary of HTML META Tags: http://vancouver-webpages.com/META/
Dr Clue's HTML Guide: http://www.drclue.net/F1.cgi/HTML/META/META.html
Gain Fame with Meta Tags: http://www.internetworld.com/print/monthly/1997/10/workshop.html
Search Engine robots.txt info: http://www.chami.com/tips/internet/012297I.html
Meta Tagging for Search Engines: http://www.stars.com/Search/Meta/Tag.html
Meta Tags Target Your Pages: http://www.zdnet.com/devhead/stories/articles/0,4413,2284627,00.html
Search engine info
Search Engine Watch: http://searchenginewatch.internet.com (the best)
Meta tag creator web sites (for web pages)
Meta Tag Generator: http://www.submitcorner.com/Guide/Meta/ (nice)
Meta-Tag Generator: http://www.websitepromote.com/resources/meta/
META Tag Builder: http://www.metatagbuilder.com
Meta Tag Generator: http://www.submitexpress.com/metatag.html
Tagbot: http://www.tagbot.com