- Meta tags are not a magic solution.
- Meta tags are not a magic solution.
- Meta tags are not a magic solution.
Meta tags provide a useful way to control your listing summary in some
search engines. The search engines that support meta tags can be found here 
Meta tags can also help you provide keywords and descriptions on pages that for various reasons lack text. Simply including a meta tag is not a guarantee that your page should suddenly leap to the top of every search engine listing. They are a useful tool but, as said above, not a magic solution.
There are several meta tags, but the most important for search engine indexing are the description and keywords tags. The description tag returns a description of the page in place of the summary the search engine would ordinarily create. The keywords tag provides keywords for the search engine to associate with your page.
Before getting into further specifics, let's assume you have a page without the tags. The page is titled "My Attic," with a header that says "Welcome to My Attic," then a giant graphic image, then a link at the bottom that says "enter." Search engines that index this will probably return a listing like this:
My Attic
Welcome to My Attic
Now let's fix it. Let's assume that within "My Attic" is a site chock full of information about stamp collecting. Here visitors can find out about stamp prices, stamp conventions, stamps for sale and trade, the history of stamps and much more. We'll use the meta tags to communicate this without destroying the simple page you've worked so hard (ahem) to create. The meta tags go inside the header tags, so that everything looks like this:
<HEAD>
<TITLE>My Attic</TITLE>
<META name="description" content="Everything you wanted to know about
stamps, from prices to history.">
<META name="keywords" content="stamps, stamp collecting, stamp history,
prices, stamps for sale">
</HEAD>
Now your listing will look something like this in search engines that support the descriptions tag:
My Attic
Everything you wanted to know about stamps, from prices to history.
Notice how the description matches what's in the description tag? That's exactly what the meta description tag does. It lets you control the description that appears.
What about the meta keywords tag? It gives your page a chance to come up if someone types in any of the words listed. For example, someone might enter "stamp collecting," which will match with one of the keywords in the tag. Without that tag, there would be no chance at all, since "stamp collecting" doesn't appear on the page or in the description tag.
Having "stamp collecting" together as a word vs. "stamp" and "collecting" can help if someone is searching for the exact phrase "stamp collecting." In general, try not to worry about it too much. You'll drive yourself crazy trying to cover which engines understand plural forms as a default choice vs. those without a thesaurus vs. those that do phrase searching as a default setting. Still with us?
Remember, you are using these tags to help make up for the lack of text on your pages, not as a way to successfully anticipate every keyword variation a person might enter into a search engine. The only hope you have of ever doing that is to have good, descriptive pages with good titles and text that is not buried on the bottom of the page by JavaScript, frames tags or tables. The meta tags are a tool to get around these aforementioned problems.
We use meta description and meta keyword tags in your Attic pages, so be sure to give us a hand by providing or updating these. Some search engines give your page a boost for them. But don't expect that to necessarily be enough to put it in the top ten. Meta tags are mainly a design element you can tap into, a crutch for helping information-poor pages better be acknowledged by the search engines.
Meta Tag Tutorials
Back to Basics: META Tags
WebDeveloper, Oct. 1997
Excellent overview of all sorts of important meta tags.
A Dictionary of HTML META Tags
Virtually every meta tag you may have seen or can imagine is described
here, well beyond just the keywords and description tags.
Dr Clue's HTML Guide - Meta Tags
A short tutorial to some of the many meta tags that are available in
addition to the keywords and description tags. It includes the Meta-Maker at the end.
Meta Tag Builders and Evaluators
Meta Medic
Submit any page with meta tags on it, and Meta Medic will check to see if
the tags are valid. It will also offer advice about length and warn of possible problems
it believes the tags may have.
AAA Internet Promotion's Meta-Tag Generator
Enter a page title, up to 5 keywords and a 60 word description, and
Meta-Tag Generator will e-mail code that you can cut-and-paste into your web page. Note
that it will place a commented credit line into the tag. This can easily be removed, if
you wish.
WebPromote's Meta-Tag Generator
As above, enter a page title, keywords and a description, and you'll be
e-mailed a meta tag incorporated into your page code. Nice pop-up help box provides some
meta tag tips. The commented credit line can be removed, if you wish.
Meta Tag Builder
This form allows you to create very complicated meta tags using much more
than the keywords and description tags, if you wish. Note that it will place a commented
credit line into the tag. This can easily be removed, if you wish.
SiteUp's Meta-Tag Generator
Unlike the services above, this is a software-based package for Windows 95 that creates
meta tags. It is a freeware package -- no registration fee required.
