Editing Meta element (section)

==Meta element used in search engine optimization==
Meta elements provide information about the web page, which can be used by search engines to help categorize the page correctly.

They have been the focus of a field of [[marketing]] research known as [[search engine optimization]] (SEO), where different methods are used to provide a user's website with a higher ranking on search engines. Prior to the rise of content-analysis by search engines in the mid-1990s (most notably Google), search engines were reliant on metadata to correctly classify a Web page and webmasters quickly learned the commercial significance of having the right meta element.  The search engine community is now divided as to the value of meta tags.  Some claim they have no value, others that they are central, while many simply conclude there is no clear answer but, since they do no harm, they use them just in case.  Google<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/79812?hl=en|title=Meta tags that Google understands – Search Console Help|website=support.google.com|language=en|access-date=2018-10-15}}</ref> states they do support the meta tags "content", "robots", "google", "google-site-verification", "content-type", "refresh" and "google-bot".
 
Major search engine robots look at many factors when determining how to rank a page of which meta tags will only form a portion.  Furthermore, most search engines change their ranking rules frequently.  Google have stated they update their ranking rules every 48 hours.  Under such circumstances, a definitive understanding of the role of meta tags in SEO is unlikely.

===The <code>keywords</code> attribute===
The <code>keywords</code> attribute was popularized by [[Web search engine|search engine]]s such as [[Infoseek]] and [[AltaVista]] in 1995, and its popularity quickly grew until it became one of the most commonly used <code>meta</code> elements.<ref>Statistic (June 4, 1997), [http://vancouver-webpages.com/META/bycount.shtml META attributes by count], ''Vancouver Webpages'', retrieved June 3, 2007</ref>

No consensus exists whether or not the <code>keywords</code> attribute has any effect on ranking at any of the major [[search engines]] today. It is speculated{{By whom|date=November 2015}} that it does if the keywords used in the <code>meta</code> can also be found in the page copy itself.{{citation needed|date=May 2013}} With respect to [[Google]], thirty-seven leaders in search engine optimization concluded in April 2007 that the relevance of having keywords in the <code>meta</code>-attribute <code>keywords</code> is little to none<ref>[http://sangers.nu/blog/tech/20080909-the-meta-tag-attribute--keywords "In 2007, 37 leaders in search engine optimisation concluded that having keywords in the keywords attribute is little to none." Sanger.nu blog, September 9 2008, Retrieved August 2 2011] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090221001513/http://sangers.nu/blog/tech/20080909-the-meta-tag-attribute--keywords |date=2009-02-21 }}</ref> and in September 2009 [[Matt Cutts]] of Google announced that they were no longer taking keywords into account whatsoever.<ref>[http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html "Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking"] Google Webmaster Central Blog, September 21, 2009, Retrieved September 21, 2009</ref>  However, both these articles suggest that [[Yahoo!]] still makes use of the keywords meta tag in some of its rankings.  Yahoo! itself claims support for the keywords meta tag in conjunction with other factors for improving search rankings.<ref>Yahoo! FAQs, [https://web.archive.org/web/20071015182848/http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/search/ranking/ranking-02.html How do I improve the ranking of my web site in the search results?], ''Yahoo.com'', retrieved November 12, 2008</ref> In October 2009 Search Engine Round Table announced that "Yahoo Drops The Meta Keywords Tag Also"<ref>[http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/020918.html "Yahoo Drops The Meta Keywords Tag Also"] SEO Roundtable, October 8, 2009, Retrieved April 22, 2011</ref> but later reported that the announcement made by Yahoo!'s Senior Director of Search was incorrect.<ref name="gotitwrong">[http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/020964.html "Yahoo's Senior Director of Search Got It Wrong, Yahoo Uses Meta Keywords Still"] SEO Roundtable, October 16, 2009, Retrieved April 22, 2011</ref> In the corrected statement Yahoo! Senior Director of Search states that "…What changed with Yahoo's ranking algorithms is that while we still index the meta keyword tag, the ranking importance given to meta keyword tags receives the lowest ranking signal in our system … it will actually have less effect than introducing those same words in the body of the document, or any other section."<ref name="gotitwrong"/> In Sept 2012, Google<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.in/2012/09/a-newly-hatched-way-to-tag-your-news.html|title=A newly hatched way to tag your news articles|work=Google News Blog|access-date=2018-10-15|language=en-US}}</ref> announced that they will consider Keyword Meta tag for news publishers. [[Google]] said that this may help worthy content to get noticed.  The syntax of the news meta keyword has subtle difference from custom keyword meta tag; it is denoted by "news_keywords", while the custom keyword meta tag is denoted by "keywords". Google News no longer takes into account keywords announced by news_keywords.<ref>[https://support.google.com/news/publisher-center/thread/1416264?hl=en "Meta news keywords still works ?"], ''Google Publisher Center Community'', retrieved March 6, 2020</ref>

=== The Title attribute ===
According to Moz, "Title tags are the second most important on-page factor for SEO, after content".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://moz.com/learn/seo/on-page-factors|title=On-Page Ranking Factors – SEO Best Practices|date=2017-04-24|website=Moz|language=en-us|access-date=2017-04-25}}</ref> They convey to the search engines what a given page is all about. It used to be standard SEO practice to include the primary and the secondary keywords in the title for better ranking. Google has gone through various iterations of showing short or longer amounts of content from within the title tags.

Regardless, the title tags still hold importance in three different ways.
* They are displayed as page title in search results (and influence user behavior with respect to clicking on particular results).
* Web browsers display them in naming open tabs; since the title is visible on hover, this is especially useful when too many tabs are open and only the [[favicon]] for each page (if available) is visible.
* As in search results, titles are visible when page links are posted on social media and this, too, conveys to the users what the link is about.

===The <code>description</code> attribute===
Unlike the <code>keywords</code> attribute, the <code>description</code> attribute is supported by most major search engines, like [[Yahoo!]] and [[Bing (search engine)|Bing]], while [[Google]] will fall back on this tag when information about the page itself is requested (e.g. using the <code>related:</code> query). The <code>description</code> attribute provides a concise explanation of a [[Web page]]'s content. This allows the Web page authors to give a more meaningful description for listings than might be displayed if the search engine was unable to automatically create its own description based on the page content. The description is often, but not always, displayed on [[search engine results page]]s, so it can affect click-through rates. While clicks for a result can be a positive sign of effective <code>title</code> and <code>description</code> writing, [[Google]] does not recognize this meta element as a ranking factor, so using target keyword phrases in that element will not help a site rank better. W3C doesn't specify the size of this description meta tag, but almost all search engines recommend it to be shorter than 160 characters of plain text.{{Citation needed|date=July 2007}}

===The <code>language</code> attribute===
The <code>language</code> attribute tells search engines what natural language the website is written in (e.g. English, Spanish or French), as opposed to the coding language (e.g. HTML). It is normally an [[IETF language tag]] for the language name. It is of most use when a website is written in multiple languages and can be included on each page to tell search engines in which language a particular page is written. User-agents can (and do) use language information to select language-appropriate fonts, which improves the overall user experience of the page.{{Citation needed|date=July 2007}}

===The <code>robots</code> attribute===
The <code>robots</code> attribute, supported by several major search engines,<ref>Vanessa Fox, [http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/03/using-robots-meta-tag.html Using the robots meta tag], Official Google Webmaster Central Blog, 3/05/2007</ref>{{Failed verification|date=January 2010}} controls whether search engine spiders are allowed to [[search engine indexing|index]] a page, or not, and whether they should follow links from a page, or not. The attribute can contain one or more comma-separate values. The <code>noindex</code> value prevents a page from being indexed, and <code>nofollow</code> prevents links from being [[Web crawler|crawled]]. Other values recognized by one or more search engines can influence how the engine indexes pages, and how those pages appear on the search results.  These include <code>noarchive</code>, which instructs a search engine not to store an archived copy of the page, and <code>nosnippet</code>, which asks that the search engine not include a snippet from the page along with the page's listing in search results.<ref>Danny Sullivan (March 5, 2007),[http://searchengineland.com/070305-204850.php Meta Robots Tag 101: Blocking Spiders, Cached Pages & More] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080927023737/http://searchengineland.com/070305-204850.php |date=2008-09-27 }}, ''SearchEngineLand.com'', retrieved June 3, 2007</ref>

Meta tags are one of the best options for preventing search engines from indexing content of a website.<ref>[https://developers.google.com/webmasters/control-crawl-index/docs/faq#h17 If I block Google from crawling a page using a robots.txt disallow directive, will it disappear from search results?], ''developers.google.com'', retrieved July 26, 2013</ref>

====Additional attributes for search engines====

=====NOODP=====
The search engines [[Google]], [[Yahoo!]] and [[Live Search|MSN]] used in some cases the title and abstract of the [[DMOZ]] (aka Open Directory Project) listing of a website for the title and/or description (also called snippet or abstract) in the [[search engine results page]]s (SERP). To give [[webmaster]]s the option to specify that the Open Directory Project content should not be used for listings of their website, Microsoft introduced in May 2006 the new "<code>NOODP</code>" value for the "<code>robots</code>" element of the meta tags.<ref>Betsy Aoki (May 22, 2006), [http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch/archive/2006/05/22/603917.aspx Opting Out of Open Directory Listings for Webmasters], ''Live Search Blog'', retrieved June 3, 2007</ref> Google followed in July 2006<ref>Vanessa Fox (July 13, 2006), [http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/07/more-control-over-page-snippets.html More control over page snippets], ''Inside Google Sitemaps'', retrieved June 3, 2007</ref> and Yahoo! in October 2006.<ref>Yahoo! Search (October 24, 2006), [http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000368.html Yahoo! Search Weather Update and Support for 'NOODP'], ''Yahoo! Search Blog'', retrieved June 3, 2007</ref>

By 2017, Google reported stopping the use of [[DMOZ]], following its closure, hence, NOODP directive is ignored since.<ref>[https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2017/06/better-snippets-for-your-users Better Snippets for your Users]</ref>

The syntax is the same for all search engines who support the tag.
<syntaxhighlight lang="html">
<meta name="robots" content="noodp" >
</syntaxhighlight>

Webmasters can decide if they want to disallow the use of their ODP listing on a per search engine basis

Google:
<syntaxhighlight lang="html"><meta name="googlebot" content="noodp" ></syntaxhighlight>

Yahoo!
<syntaxhighlight lang="html">
<meta name="Slurp" content="noodp" ></syntaxhighlight>

MSN and Live Search (via [[bingbot]], previously [[msnbot]]): <syntaxhighlight lang="html">
<meta name="bingbot" content="noodp" ></syntaxhighlight>

=====NOYDIR=====
Yahoo! puts content from their own Yahoo! directory next to the ODP listing. In 2007 they introduced a meta tag that lets web designers opt-out of this.<ref>Yahoo! Search (February 28, 2007), [http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000418.html Yahoo! Search Support for 'NOYDIR' Meta Tags and Weather Update] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081106103321/http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000418.html |date=2008-11-06 }}, ''Yahoo! Search Blog'', retrieved June 3, 2007</ref>

Adding the <code>NOYDIR</code> tag to a page will prevent Yahoo! from displaying [[Yahoo! Directory]] titles and abstracts.

<syntaxhighlight lang="html">
<meta name="robots" content="noydir" >
<meta name="Slurp" content="noydir" >
</syntaxhighlight>

===Effect on searching===
[[Google]] does not use HTML keyword or meta tag elements for indexing. The Director of Research at Google, [[Monika Henzinger]], was quoted (in 2002) as saying, "Currently we don't trust metadata because we are afraid of being manipulated."<ref>Greta de Groat (2002). "Perspectives on the Web and Google: [[Monika Henzinger]], Director of Research, Google", ''Journal of Internet Cataloging'', Vol. 5(1), pp. 17–28, 2002.</ref> Other search engines developed techniques to penalize Web sites considered to be "cheating the system". For example, a Web site repeating the same meta keyword several times may have its ranking ''decreased'' by a search engine trying to eliminate this practice, though that is unlikely. It is more likely that a search engine will ignore the meta keyword element completely, and most do regardless of how many words are used in the element.

[[Google]] does, however, use meta tag elements for displaying site links. The title tags are used to create the link in search results:
<syntaxhighlight lang="html">
<title>Site name - Page title - Keyword description</title>
</syntaxhighlight>

The meta description often appears in [[Google]] search results to describe the link:
<syntaxhighlight lang="html">
<meta name="description" content="A blurb to describe the content of the page appears here" >
</syntaxhighlight>Additionally, enterprise search startup [[Swiftype]] considers meta tags as a mechanism for signaling relevancy for their web site search engines, even introducing their own extension called Meta Tags 2.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://swiftype.com/documentation/meta_tags2|title=<nowiki>Meta Tags 2</nowiki>|date=2014-03-10|website=Swiftype|access-date=2017-11-08}}</ref>