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Including Meta (Indexing) Information in your Document

There are a number of programs that search the World Wide Web for documents and compile them into indexes. Some of these merely extract filenames or titles from headers. Others use a more sophisticated method that depends on the HTML author to include indexing information in the HTML file in a specific format.

This indexing information is called meta information and can also be used to create your own local searchable indexes of your WebCom web pages.

To take effective advantage of these indexing services which rely on meta information, you need to include meta tags in the head section of your HTML document.

For example, if you want your files to be automatically indexed into a search facility which automatically combs the Web for new pages, you will need to include the following tag/name combinations in key files on your site (ones that serve as entry points into it):

  • To have Verio/WebCom put Meta tags on your site and get listed on the search engines, just click here!


    Basic META Tags

    <META name="resource-type" content="document">
    <META name="description" content="description of page">
    <META name="keywords" content="key words">
    <META name="distribution" content="global">
    <META name="copyright" content="copyright infomation">

    Here is a breakdown of the significance of each tag. Note that when a document is indexed, the TITLE of the document becomes more significant, as it will be part of the information people use to decide whether or not to visit a site, based on the material displayed in the index.

    <META name="resource-type" content="document">
    This tells the world that this file is a document. This tag is sometimes necessary because some services will not index files that are not documents.
    <META name="description" content="description of page">
    This will be displayed along with the title of your document in the index listing. It should enable the person looking at it to easily determine the content (and thus their interest) of the series of documents it leads into. Example: "Contains information about the Santa Cruz area modern dance scene, including local dance studios, classes offered by area professionals, major events, and academic programs in area schools."
    <META name="keywords" content="key words">
    Words logically related to the content of the document series (think what you would enter into a key word search to locate this document).
    <META name="distribution" content="global">
    Use global for major entry points to your site(s). Use local for local indexes.
    <META name="copyright" content="copyright information">
    Places a copyright message in the automatically generated index file.
    "This document copyright 1994 by Bob Smith. Use for non-profit and education purposes explicitly granted."

    Again, this is the only information people looking at this entry in an index might have, so make sure the description, title, and key words all contribute to an useful summation of the content of the site the document leads into.

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