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meta tags [ ^ ]

Each meta element provides metadata according to its pair of name and content attributes. For each meta element, name specifies the property and content defines its property. All meta tags are entirely case-insensitive. If you are using XHTML for markup, however, all tags must be lowercase, but their values are case-insensitive. WordPress users may now add a complete set of meta data by using our free plugin, Head MetaData Plus 3.

meta title

Although the meta title tag is no longer used by most major search engines, it remains useful for reference and organizational purposes. This tag is simialr to the title tag, which should be used either in addition to or as replacement for the meta title tag:

<meta name="title" content="This is the Title of the Page"/>

meta description

The meta description tag is used in the search results of major search engines. Optimizing the content of this tag with effective keywords will help improve page rank. Use any alphanumeric characters — uppercase and/or lowercase — and limit to 250 characters (including spaces) or less:

<meta name="description" content="This is the description of the page."/>

meta keywords

Also important in search engine optimization, meta keywords are used by search engines in determining the type of content contained in the document. To optimize this tag, limit the number of keywords to around 12 page-specific lowercase words or short phrases. The keywords may be space-seperated or comma-seperated:

<meta name="keywords" content="keywords, buzzwords, descriptive, optimized, spelling, variations, etcetera"/>

meta language

The meta language tag indicates the language used in the document (related tag: http-equiv language):

<meta name="language" content="English"/>

meta subject

The meta subject tag indicates the primary subject of the document. Although the meta subject tag is no longer used by most major search engines, it remains useful for reference and organizational purposes:

<meta name="subject" content="The Subject of the Page"/>

meta abstract

The meta abstract tag provides a brief description of the document, and is usually a summary of the description tag:

<meta name="abstract" content="This is a brief yet descriptive summary of the page content."/>

meta generator

The meta generator tag specifies the generator or software used in the production of the document:

<meta name="generator" content="The Generator of the Document"/>

meta publisher

The meta publisher tag specifies the publisher of the document:

<meta name="publisher" content="Document Publisher"/>

meta owner

The meta owner tag specifies the owner of the document:

<meta name="owner" content="Document Owner"/>

meta copyright

The meta copyright tag specifies copyright information and/or trademark names, patent numbers, or other legal information:

<meta name="copyright" content="The Business, 2008. All rights Reserved."/>

meta date

The meta date tag specifies the date on which the document was last modified:

<meta name="date" content="YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssTZD" />
YYYY = four-digit year
MM = two-digit month
DD = two-digit day of month
hh = two-digit hour (00 through 23 only)
mm = two-digit minute (00 through 59)
ss = two-digit second (00 through 59)
TZD = time zone designator

meta address

The meta address tag specifies an associated contact address for the document:

<meta name="address" content="contact address info" />

meta author

The meta author tag specifies the author(s) of the document, and may include name(s), email(s), and/or url(s). Note, the preferred language of the author should be specified via the lang="xx" attribute, where xx represents the two-digit language abbreviation.

<meta name="author" content="Author Name, spam-please@tons-of-spam.com"/>

meta designer

The meta designer tag specifies the designer(s) of the document:

<meta name="designer" content="The Designer"/>

meta template

The meta template tag indicates the name of any template pertaining to the document:

<meta name="template" content="Template Name"/>

meta resource-type

The meta resource-type tag describes the document resource type, and should be used in conjuction with the DTD declaration. Apparently, the value for the content attribute must always be document:

<meta name="resource-type" content="document"/>

meta classification

The meta classification tag describes the document’s classification:

<meta name="classification" content="Website Design"/>

meta doc-type, doc-class, & doc-rights

Here are three additional tags that may be used to help further define, classify and/or organize documents:

<meta name="doc-type" content="public"/>
<meta name="doc-class" content="completed"/>
<meta name="doc-rights" content="copywritten work"/>

meta distribution

The meta distribution tag defines the intended level of distribution of the document on the world wide web. Supported distribution types include global (WWWeb), local (IP Block), and IU (Internal Use: not recommended, may cause problems). Use of this tag is rare for documents that are intended for use throughout the entire World Wide Web. Documents using this tag to limit distribution are advised to use the robots.txt or htaccess file either in addition to or as replacement for the meta distribution tag.

<meta name="distribution" content="global"/>

meta page-topic

The meta page-topic tag describes the topic of the document:

<meta name="page-topic" content="Topic of the Page"/>

meta page-type

The meta page-type tag enables authors to further specify and/or classify the page by indicating a specific type:

<meta name="page-type" content="Commercial"/>

meta audience

The meta audience tag specifies a specific audience type:

<meta name="audience" content="All"/>

meta rating

The meta rating tag specifies the rating of the document within the context of intended audience type:

<meta name="rating" content="general"/>

meta robots

The meta robots tag declares to search engines which links and/or content to follow/ignore, cache/archive, and/or display/ignore. Although the robots.txt1 file is the preferred method for these directives, the meta robots tag issues the same directives, namely all, index, noindex, follow, nofollow, as well as noimageindex and nomediaindex (related tag: http-equiv cache-control):

<meta name="robots" content="index,follow"/>

Here are the possible values for the meta robots tag:
index - index the page
noindex - don’t index the page
follow - follow links from the page
nofollow - don’t follow links from the page
noarchive - don’t cache/archive the page
none - do nothing, ignore the page
all - do whatever you want, default behavior

meta googlebot

The meta googlebot tag declares to search engines which links and/or content to follow/ignore, cache/archive, and/or display/ignore. Although the robots.txt1 file is the preferred method for these directives, the meta googlebot tag issues the same directives, namely all (open season on all content), index (index pages for search results), noindex (do not index pages for search results), follow (follow links), nofollow (do not follow links), archive (please archive/cache all content), noarchive (do not cache/archive content), snippet (use cached content as search result excerpt), nosnippet (use no excerpt or cached content in search results — use title tag instead):

<meta name="googlebot" content="noarchive"/>

meta refresh

The meta refresh tag instructs the browser to refresh the document after the specified number of seconds (related tag: http-equiv refresh):

<meta name="refresh" content="5"/>

meta expires

The meta expires tag is used in conjuction with the meta revisit-after tag for frequently updated content. The meta expires tag indicates the expiry date for the document (related tag: http-equiv expires). This tag requires RFC1123 date format:

<meta name="expires" content="Mon, 04 Jul 2050 07:07:07 GMT"/>

<meta name="expires" content="Never"/>

meta revisit-after

The revisit-after tag declares the number of days after which search engines should revisit your webpage for re-indexing. This tag is used in conjuction with the meta expires tag for frequently updated content. The revisit-after tag is useful for search rank optimization when search results are ordered according to date of most recent submission:

<meta name="revisit-after" content="3"/>

meta reply-to

The meta reply-to tag specifies contact information (related tag: http-equiv reply-to):

<meta name="reply-to" content="Some Person, somebody@somewhere.com"/>

meta no-email-collection

The meta no-email-collection tag instructs search agents not to collect any email addresses from the document. Further, a link may provided to any specific email policy regarded by the domain. Note: although some search engines may indeed obey this command, many do not.

<meta name="no-email-collection" value="http://www.domain.com/policy.html"/>

meta VW96.ObjectType

The meta VW96.ObjectType tag is based on an early version of the Dublin Core report, using a defined schema of document types:

<meta name="VW96.ObjectType" content="faq | howto |etc"/>

meta MSSmartTags

The meta MSSmartTags tag has something to do with Microsoft software and, well I really don’t (yawn) care enough to research this tag:

<meta name="MSSmartTags" content="true"/>
<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="true"/>

Other proprietary Microsoft nonsense

These are listed here for reference purposes only. If you find yourself needing more information regarding these proprietary tags, you are in a dark place, traveling down a very dark road..

<meta name="DownloadOptions" content="Download Options for Whatever"/>
<meta name="ProgId" content="Programmatic Identifier for Whatever"/>
<meta name="Template" content="Template Location for the Document"/>

Here is one for the MSIE image toolbar. Useful for disabling such nonsense:

<meta http-equiv="imagetoolbar" content="yes|no|true|false"/>

This one is used to disable the MS WinXP theme compatibility nonsense:

<meta http-equiv="MSThemeCompatible" content="no"/>

meta version

Indicate any specific content version info via this tag:

<meta name="version" content="MeatSpace 3.0"/>

meta presdate

Indicate any specific content presentation date via this tag: (date shown represents 2007/01/01)

<meta name="presdate" content="20070101"/>

meta defaultView

Indicate any specific content view type via this tag:

<meta name="defaultView" content="slideshow"/>

meta controlVis

Indicate the visibilty status of any inherent controls for the document:

<meta name="controlVis" content="hidden"/>

meta viewport

This tag is recognized by the iPhone’s Mobile Safari browser and controls the behavior of its viewport. For example, if your site is 777 pixels wide, using the following meta tag would enable Mobile Safari to size the viewport according to the correct dimensions:

<meta name="viewport" content="width=777" />

miscellaneous meta attributes

<meta name="autosize" content="off"/>

geo meta tags [ ^ ]

The meta geo tag specifies the relative physical location of the document. For the geo.position name, latitude is plotted vertically as the “y” coordinate, while longitude is plotted horizontally as the “x” coordinate. For more information, search for “geotag generator” and “checkmap” or “check map” Web pages that utilize the geo.position tag are encouraged to display a GeoTag icon:

<meta name="geo.position" content="latitude;longitude"/>
<meta name="geo.position" content="49.2;-123.4"/>

The geo.placename helps to further define physical location by specifying the name of the location:

<meta name="geo.placename" content="place name"/>
<meta name="geo.placename" content="London, Ontario"/>

There is also a geo.region tag that is useful for indicating the associated region via the country’s subdivision code. The country’s subdivion code is predefined, taken from a controlled ISO 3166-2 list, and may be used for resource discovery. If the regional code is unknown, the 2-character country code may be used instead. This tag may also be used to check or validate the geo.position tag:

<meta name="geo.region" content="country subdivision code"/>
<meta name="geo.region" content="US-WA"/>

And don’t forget about the "geo.country" meta tag, which indicates the two-digit abbreviation of the associated country:

<meta name="geo.country" content="US"/>

Here is another set of tags used to add your location to the GeoURL ICBM Address Server
( more info ):

<meta name="ICBM" content="XXX.XXXXX, XXX.XXXXX"/>
<meta name="DC.title" content="THE NAME OF YOUR SITE"/>

Dublin Core tags [ ^ ]

The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) is an organization dedicated to promoting the widespread adoption of interoperable metadata standards and developing specialized metadata vocabularies for describing resources that enable more intelligent information discovery systems.

Here are a few of the metadata elements developed by the Dublin Core; for a complete list, check out their website at http://dublincore.org/.

<meta name="dc.title" content="Document Title"/>
<meta name="dc.format" content="Document Format"/>
<meta name="dc.rights" content="Document Rights"/>
References & Related
1 Robots Notes Plus
2 Category LiveBookmarks Plugin
3 Head MetaData Plus Plugin
4 Stupid htaccess Tricks
5 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) Formats
6 Exploring the (X)HTML Link Element
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Exploring the (X)HTML Link Element
About this article

This is article #196, posted by Perishable on Wednesday, August 30, 2006 @ 09:28am. Categorized as Structure, and tagged with elements, html, markup, meta, metadata, notes, reference, tags, xhtml, xml. Updated on November 27, 2007. Visited 16815 times. 5 Responses »