How to add metadata to University of Essex web pages
Adding metadata to your pages
Contents of this page:
What is metadata?
Metadata is data about data. The information on the dustjacket of a
book is metadata, for example: author, publisher, title, price, description, etc. It's the
kind of information that helps people find what they're looking for. On the web, it's what
helps people find your pages.
When search engine robots catalogue the WWW they extract metadata from
web pages by various means. If you understand a little about metadata then you can
influence how your web pages are presented to the rest of the world. This helps you to
reach your target audience and it helps users to find what they want more efficiently.
At present, there is no accepted standard for the use of metadata on the WWW, but this
may change in the future. In the meantime, we should be taking measures to improve the
description and cataloguing of information held on the web. This page sets out a
suggested approach for University web authors, based on principles that are widely used.
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Meta tags
Meta data is usually added to web pages in the form of meta tags, hidden in the HEAD
section of a page. Most users are consequently unaware of these tags, even though the tags
might well have helped them find the page in the first place.
What does a meta tag look like?
Each meta tag has a name and some associated content.
An example used on this page is:
<meta name="description" content="How to add
metadata to University of Essex web pages.">
You can look at a web page's meta tags by viewing the document's source HTML (usually
under the View menu, depending on which web browser you're using).
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Suggested meta tags for University web authors
If you prefer not to go into too much detail about meta tags, simply adapt the
following set of tags for your pages. The parts you should change are indicated
in bold green.
<head>
<title>meaningful page title</title>
<meta name="description" content="A short sentence
or two describing the contents of your web page.">
<meta name="keywords" content="key
words, synonyms and mis-spellings of important words
describing your page that do not appear in the body of the page; each word or
phrase should be separated by a comma; while keyword meta tags aren't vital for
optimising pages for external search engines, they can be useful in helping your
pages to be found by the University's search engine.
">
<meta name="author" content="your
name">
<meta name="reply-to" content="yourusername">
<meta name="robots" content="all">
</head>
These tags are explained in more detail further down this
page. Meta tags should be inserted in the HEAD section of your web page, as shown above.
The next section of this page includes instructions for adding meta tags
to web pages.
Note: the <title> tag is not, strictly speaking, a meta
tag. It does, however, contain important information about the web page and should be
chosen and applied with care.
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How to add meta tags to your web pages
Although packages such as FrontPage and SharePoint
Designer support the use of meta tags, it's not very intuitive to add
them. In the latter, right-click on the page, select Page Properties you can
edit the description and keywords tags.
If you're comfortable working with HTML you can simply type the meta
tags into the HEAD section of your web page (after the <HEAD> tag and
before the closing </HEAD> tag). You can produce your own meta tags by copying,
pasting and editing the examples provided here.
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Suggested meta tags explained
Not all search engines recognise meta tags, and those that do may use them in different
ways. Even so, it's good practice to provide useful metadata about your web pages and it
will be increasingly important in the future.
The University website's search engine
does make use of meta tags (which,
alone, is an excellent reason for using them). The meta tags suggested
for use on University web pages (summarised above) are
explained below.
"Description"
| consists of: |
One or two
lines to describe the page (it should be more detailed than the page title and must not
include HTML tags).
|
| example: |
<meta
name="description" content="Guidelines for the use of metadata in
University of Essex web pages.">
|
The Description text will appear in some search engine results pages as a brief
summary of your site, and may also be used in indexing your page.
"Keywords"
| consists of:
|
A
few keywords and terms that might be used when looking for pages like yours
but do not appear in the body of the page. A good use of this tag is for
common mis-spellings and synonyms. This tag has been widely abused and so is
ignored by most search engines; it is, however, very useful in more
controlled environments and so is used by the University's search engine. Words and
terms should be separated by commas.
|
| example: |
<meta
name="keywords" content="meta data, metadata, meta tag,
meta-tag, search-engine,
guidelines">
|
Some search engines are case sensitive, so use capitals selectively. Don't repeat
words, but do include variations of key terms; in the example above I've used 'meta data',
'metadata' and 'meta tag'.
"Author" and "Reply-to"
| consists of:
|
These
tags can be used to specify the name and e-mail address of the document's author;
it's a good idea not to put your full e-mail address to avoid harvesting for
junk mail.
|
| example: |
<meta
name="author" content="Keith Brooke">
<meta name="reply-to" content="kbrooke">
|
Some HTML editors automatically add the Author
tag. If these tags were used extensively at Essex, it would be a lot easier to search for
pages created by a specific user. The tags also improve user accountability for pages.
"Robots"
| consists of:
|
Instructions
for search engines' indexing programs (known as 'robots').
|
| example: |
<meta
name="robots" content="all">
|
"Robots" meta tags allow you to control indexing of individual
documents: you can instruct search robots to ignore a web page, for example. The
syntax for the tag is as follows:
Content
|
Resulting
behaviour
|
| all |
Robots
can index the page. |
| none |
Robots
should ignore the page. |
| noindex |
Prevents
indexing of a page. |
| follow |
Robots
can follow links from this page. |
| nofollow |
Robots
cannot follow links from this page. |
An example of meta tags in practice
The HTML for the HEAD section of a web page, with appropriate meta tags, should look
something like this:
<head>
<meta name="description" content="Guidelines for the use of metadata in
University of Essex web pages.">
<meta name="keywords" content="meta data, metadata, meta
tag, meta-tag, search-engine, guidelines">
<meta name="author" content="Keith Brooke">
<meta name="reply-to" content="kbrooke">
<meta name="robots" content="all">
<title>Metadata guidelines</title>
</head>
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Related issues
Meta tags are not a secret ingredient that will ensure your web pages show up
prominently in search engines' results pages: they are just one of the many ways of
improving the way your pages are presented to the rest of the world. For more information
on how search engines work, take a look at A web
author's guide to search engines.
In brief, as well as using appropriate meta tags, you should:
- be particularly careful about your choice of page title (defined by the
<title> tag - incorrect page titles might result in search engines listing
your page as 'No Title' or simply by its URL...);
- ensure that relevant keywords crop up in your body text and in headings
and subheadings (all of which will be catalogued by search engine robots).
Note
Metadata can be used inaccurately and illegally: USA-based websites using misleading
metadata have been successfully sued. Searchenginewatch has more information on the legal
issues surrounding the use of false metadata:
http://searchenginewatch.com/resources/article.php/2156551.