Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} Over the years Meta tags have become quite misunderstood and usually used incorrectly on the Internet. With the help of this document a brief explanation of Meta tags will be given, a complete break down of all the Meta tags that we are aware of, and recommendations of which ones you should or shouldn't use for your website.
What are Meta tags? This question gets asked to us all the time. Meta tags are a snippet of informational code that has been located between your <HEAD> </HEAD> tags that are apart of your HTML document you've generated.
There are two known styles/attributes that you'll see for Meta tags. These happen to be:
Back in the mid 90s Meta tags were developed to assist in the rapid growth of web pages, but soon after in the late 90s something major happened. Many Webmasters, generally those that ran adult orientated websites, abused the use of Keyword Meta tags. Many unrelated keywords were placed on their site in the Meta tag section, causing their pornographic sites to begin appearing in search results not related to topics such as "Smithsonian".
Eventually the major search engines began discontinuing the use of Meta tags for main criteria when listing sites. Google always refused the use of Meta tags, and now currently only will index. There are several searches that do read Meta tags in their own way.
Meta Google
The Meta Google tag has several options that are exclusive for use with Google. These include:
Googlebot: noarchive - does not allow Google to display cached content
Googlebot: nosnippet - does not allow Google to display excerpt or cached content
Googlebot: noindex - similar to the robots meta element
Googlebot: nofollow - do not allow Google to pass any PageRank or link popularity to the link served.
Recommendations for the Meta Google tags: The Meta Google tags are optional to use. You generally do not need to use Meta Google tags unless you want Google to do something specific with your site. The Meta Google tag is one of the few Meta tags Google will read, index, and obey.
The following list of links will take you to information about each of the individual Meta tags that we offer information on:
Meta Content Language: May be used to declare the natural language of the document. May be used by robots to categorize by language.
Recommendation: Use this tag only if your webpage is written in non-US English. While we have not tested this to ensure it works, we have had reports from our members that it does indeed help in relation to being cataloged properly by search engines.
Meta Content Script Type: Specifies the default scripting language of the document.
Recommendation: Do not use. Search engines do not need this tag to detect scripts, they can do so on their own. Browsers do not use this tag either as they have other detection methods in place.
Meta Content Style Type: Specifies the default style sheet (Cascading Style Sheet, or CSS) language for a document.
Recommendation: Do not use. Search engines do not need to know the style sheet. Web browsers also do not look to the meta tags for the style sheet information.
Meta Content Type: It is now recommended to always use this tag even if you use a DTD declaration above the Header. Failure to do so may cause display problems where, for instance, the document uses UTF-8 punctuation characters but is displayed in ISO or ASCII charsets. There are other benefits, but you will need to be a subscriber to our SEO Revolution Newsletter (paid membership) to get the full scoop of what this tag can do for your site.
Tony Adam Tony Adam got a taste of search by migrating to a variety of roles within Fame 1 Computers, Inc. (February 2002 to October 2005), a computer hardware and sales distributor in Los Angeles. His roles included: consulting, sales, infrastructure, network implementation, web design, and development. Tony says he helped Fame 1 Computers grow their consulting division and then they needed a web presence. He stepped into an SEO role in the process. Adam Audette Adam may well be the first 'second generation internet marketer'. He got his start in 1996 working for his family's marketing company, MMG, with clients such as Intel, IBM, Art.com, and Microsoft. Since then he’s worked with many companies developing marketing and community strategies, including MSN, Zappos and Jeld-Wen. Adam's moderated the LED Digest, a discussion list for internet marketing and SEO, since 1997. He also moderates the SEM 2.0 group and is active on many industry sites. John Audette John Audette, (currently of Audette Media) one of the fathers of search was doing SEO before it had a name, before people knew what it was, before spider run search engines existed! You get the point; it was a long time ago, 1995 to be exact. John began his internet marketing career by writing a book that he attempted to have published but he could not find any takers. So he published the book himself and sold it online. With the revenue from the book sales, John started MMG (Multi-Media Marketing Group). Greg Boser Greg Boser (aka WebGuerilla and half of the SEO Rockstars duo) is known for telling it like it is. His website comment policy is, “Don’t be a dumbass!” You get the point. So how did Greg get his start in the industry and how did he go from “squeaky clean” (according to Greg himself) to one of the industry’s rebels? Christine Churchill Christine was a missile officer in the military. Her daily activities consisted of running computer simulations of missile trajectories and deployments sites. She was part of the team that selected deployment sites for Desert Storm and other targets in the Middle East. Due to the nature of her job she became known as the techie geek by her co-workers. So when her boss needed a website for an upcoming conference, Christine was who he came to. Christine had never created a website before and she only had a month before the conference. She found some resources and built a “pretty hideous site” she reflects, using frames.
In 2003, Christine decided to start her own company, KeyRelevance. KeyRelevance is a full service search engine marketing company. Bruce Clay Bruce Clay, president and CEO of Bruce Clay Inc. considers himself fortunate to have participated in the formation of an industry. “How many people can say that?” Bruce asks in an anything but boisterous way. Bruce started his business in 1996 when he got serious and decided that this was going to be a real business. By “this” he says, there was no name, the few people doing search engine optimization at the time called it different things. Brent Csutoras, Todd Malicoat & Chris Winfield Brent Csutoras, Todd Malicoat and Chris Winfield are the three musketeers of search, if you will. Through their years in the trenches of SEO they have become each other’s support systems, offering business and SEO advise whenever a comrade is in need. Together they sat down at SES New York 2008 to reflect and reminisce about how they began and developed their SEO careers. The one piece of advice they all have, build a network of experienced and trusted friends in the search industry. That has made all the difference to them. Damien Finlay Damien Finlay is the Managing Director at Epiar, a search engine optimization, marketing and copywriting firm. Originally, Damien worked at Oracle in database architecture. In 2004, on a visit to Edmonton, Alberta, Damien saw an advertisement for a Search Analyst and Account Manager for young company called Epiar. Michael Gray Michael Gray, aka Graywolf began his SEO career in 1998 while working for a jewelry and home furnishings business. He was hired as their in-house developer and stumbled into search and SEO by trying to solve issues with their online store. Through his experience with online retail, Michael took his engineering background and turned himself into a self-taught programmer and SEO expert. Jonathan Hochman Jonathan Hochman is a lead consultant for Hochman Consultants. Launched in 2004, Hochman Consultants specializes in internet marketing, search engine optimization, and pay-per-click advertising. Jonathan graduated from Yale University with two degrees in computer science. He is a Qualified Google Advertising Professional, Yahoo! Search Marketing Ambassador, and Microsoft adExcellence Member. Bill Hunt Bill Hunt is the co-owner and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Strategist for Global Strategies International (GSI). Global Strategies International is a search marketing consultancy organization offering strategic advice, training and implementation services enabling Fortune 500 and enterprise companies to effectively reach Internet users in overseas markets. In this role at GSI, Bill helps companies use SEM to reach customers in overseas markets. Andre Jensen Also know as Andre the Search Giant, Andre Jensen is a seasoned veteran in the Online Marketing industry who also got his start with the core CompUSA folks in the mid-1990s. His real start in SEO centered on something as basic as parenting. In fact, his ticket to being hired at Multimedia Marketing Group started with the curiosity of marketing his parenting site online, andrejr.com. Detlev Johnson Detlev Johnson is one of the early pioneers in search engine marketing and web optimization services. Originally a musician, he played guitar in a band called Jr. Johnson and the Mystics. Known as the “Guitar God” he taught lessons in a room upstairs at the old “Music Village” in Bend, Oregon. Laura Lippay Laura Lippay moved to Boston to participate on a rollerblade team in Boston before joining the Ringling Brothers Circus as a rollerblader in 1996. After the circus experience, Laura expanded on her interest in graphic design and multimedia in school before heading out near San Francisco working for The Linus Group. Heather Lloyd Martin
Known for her SEO Copywriting prowess, President and CEO of Success Works, Heather Lloyd Martin sat down with Mark Knowles for an interview of how it all started. “Maybe I can just give it a shot and go online and see if I can be a freelance writer," were her famous words back in the late 90s that has presently landed Heather Lloyd Martin at the center of the search marketing community with a specialty in SEO copywriting. Matt McGowan Matt McGowan, currently the Vice President of Marketing, Sales and Operations at Incisive Media, started out in financial services at Charles Schwab in New York working on Wall Street. After transferring to San Francisco, Matt joined up with Pearson as a Marketing Manager, an international publisher of textbooks for education, business information and consumer publishing markets. After a few years, Matt became the Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Operations for PropertyRoom.com, then a small e-retail auction house. Lee Odden Lee Odden, is the CEO of TopRank Online Marketing based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. TopRank is a search marketing agency integrating natural search optimization with social media marketing and new media public relations. Lee is also the CEO and co-owner with Sue Misukanis of Misukanis & Odden, Ltd., a full service marketing and public relations firm based in Minneapolis. Jeremy Sanchez Jeremy Sanchez, co-owner of Global Strategies International, (acquired by Ogilvy in March of 2007) got his start in search engine optimization (SEO) as John Audette’s Executive Assistant in 1997 at the Multi-Media Marketing Group (MMG) in Bend, Oregon. Marshall Simmonds As chief search strategist for the New York Times Company Marshall Simmonds has been predicting the end of search since he started doing it in 1997. As we all know, Marshall’s expectations of the search engines’ progression has proved wrong but he still believes it will happen someday. The search engines are still really bad about figuring out what content on websites is about and until the engines are able to extract and classify data effectively, educating journalist, writers, editors and producers to write content for SEO is going to be vital, said Marshall. Danny Sullivan Renowned search guru, nonchalantly says that he was a newspaper reporter that saw the web, liked what he saw and decided to leave newspapers and start working with a friend developing websites. A humble beginning with an exceptional future, Danny explains that he simply stumbled upon search. One of their first clients asked why they weren’t ranking tops in 1995. There weren’t any good answers at the time so Danny began digging for information. The following year, Danny published his findings on the web, as The Webmaster’s Guide to Search Engines. Shari Thurow Shari Thurow is the founder and Search Engine Optimization Director for Omni Marketing Interactive. She has been designing and promoting web sites since 1995. Shari says that the first site she ever did was a search engine friendly site and was for a large school bus company. She created all of their multi-media presentations and built their marketing database. During the process, she encountered two SEO early birds, Danny Sullivan and John Audette, who mentored her and became her good friends. Dana Todd Dana Todd initially started out in the world of what was called at the time, “search engine positioning” in late 1995 as Vice President of Bien Logic (later SiteLab), a startup web development company. In her interview with Mark Knowles, Dana mentions that the search engine optimization (SEO) environment was much different than today. She explains that SEOs did not generally know each other and the industry was largely unorganized in its early phase. Aaron Wall An SEO guru, Aaron Wall is the creator and developer of SEO Book that initially came out in December 2003. SEO Book is a leading SEO blog covering marketing tips, search analysis, and more concerning the search space. Since creation, Aaron has revised SEO Book many times and has transformed it to a membership site with online training modules, tutorial videos, custom SEO spreadsheets, exclusive tools, and a community support forum. Aaron continues to provide SEO consulting working with partner Scott Smith at Clientside SEM. Jill Whalen In the early 90’s, Jill Whalen was a stay-at-home mom with three kids. Being an early adopter of the internet, she started a parenting chat room to connect with parents across the country. To her surprise, the chat room became so popular that she got requests daily to start a website. Self taught Jill created her own parenting website. Once Parentsroom was on the net, Jill began attempting to get it to rank higher so that new people could find it. Derrick Wheeler There are a few SEO early birds that got their start at CompUSA in Portland, Oregon and Derrick Wheeler was one of them. He can still get you discounts on Windows! His start in SEO in the mid-1990’s was prompted by a co-worker at the time, Marshall Simmons, when Marshall left CompUSA to join a little company called Multimedia Marketing Group in Bend, Oregon. Little did Derrick know that the move would prompt a the journey that years later would give him the title of Senior SEO Architect for Microsoft.com.clue by......thehistoryofseo
