HTML Advanced: Meta Tags

There are three common uses for metatags.

• The first is to store information about the document, information that will be used by your server to track or maintain the document. This is most commonly done in an intranet environment. For example, you might have a metatag that identifies the author of the page and another metatag that identifies the expiration date of the content of the page. Because this use of is specific to each environment, we won't be covering this application of metatags here.

• A second use is to make something happen to the page automatically. The two most common applications are to automatically refresh a splash screen with another page or to play a sound file automatically.

• A third use is to help search spiders index the site. Some of the major search engines look for meta tags when they index a site and use the meta tag data to better identify and categorize the site. Using meta tags can help the placement of your site within these search directories, but—and this in an important caveat—using meta tags doesn't guarantee that your site will be indexed "correctly" either.

One common misconception is that you need to include meta tags in order to have your site indexed. This is not true—the automatic crawlers (another name for search spiders) will index all sites, meta tags or no. Neither Yahoo nor Excite, two of the leading search/directory companies, pay any attention to meta tags when they compile their lists. However, putting certain terms in the meta tags, may better define how your site is indexed with Alta Vista, InfoSeek, and Hot Bot.