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Home<  >News  >Free Meta Tag Generator(short)  >Links


Free HTML Meta Tag Generator (detailed)

Important Meta Tags:(* required)

*Title - This sentence appears in the title bar of a web browser when the page is loaded, and figures prominently towards your keyword relevancy. Unfortunately, web browsers also use this pseudo-meta tag as a bookmark link title. Your title and description tags should be similar. 5 - 15 words is a good length for a title tag. No more than 69-70 characters are allowed. Include as many important keywords, which are also on the page, as you can.

Description - Give your potential visitors a quick and precise summary of why they should visit this page. This tag is of diminished value, many lazy search engines (Lycos-Northern Light) just haphazardly lift the first few lines of visible words off of the page instead of using this. Describe this page using as many Keywords as possible, if this tag is missing, all the engines will behave that way! Duplicate Abstract: tag and a hidden comment are also produced for compatibility.

Use less than a total of 200 characters (around 25 words), but it's best to get to the point early in as few words as possible because the good search engines that do use this information only recognize 150 characters or less. (Google, AltaVista, Hotbot, Excite, Infoseek others...)
< Uncheck to rely on just a single Description tag!

Keywords - List of your weighted keyword combinations similar to the title, description, and the body text. "Follow the phrases, and then the single, words, with, commas" - otherwise, phrases would all have to occur FIRST, or the single words will look like one huge phrase! Search engines will use these key phrase-words to help match your page with user searches. You may also wish to include your organization name, product names, location, common spelling mistakes, plurals and synonyms for the terms used in this document, as well as Foreign word translations. Use Capitalized versions of words sparingly as they may be interpreted as duplicates by some engines!

Fantastic keyword extracting and searching utilities are available FREE from AnalogX. Keyword Extractor lets you see which keywords are (or will be) strongest on any webpage!

You are allowed up to 1024 (700-800 is better) characters (approximately 125 words) of information. Avoid repeating nouns, adjectives and verbs more than 3 times and only use words relevant to the content of this page or the pages (also foldernames and filenames) it leads to! Don't worry about excess spaces or line breaks here! Reformatting (character count compacting) will automatically occur! The 'concatenate' feature below will add the commas for you.
< Check here to concatenate a plain(no commas) tall, "word - phrase" list!

Object Type (VW96 Schema) - Category information of value to some for search engines or directory indexers. This may contribute to a pages relevancy within certain predefined search "contexts". You must add no more than a 10-15 highly relevant keywords to narrowly define the primary subject matter, keeping them to no more than 180 characters. Not as well recognized as the plain keywords tag above, but much better.
   < Object Type (Category or Ignore)
   < Primary Keywords

Robots - All (eg: do what you want) is the default behavior of most spider-robots. However, you may add some specific prohibitions which are usually respected by most spiders for the page in question. If nothing below is checked, the 'standard' "index,follow" tag will result.
  • All - Shorthand. This page will be indexed, may be archived and links may be followed.
  • Noindex - Do not index (meaning link) to this page.
  • Nofollow - Do not follow any links from this page.
  • Noarchive - Do not provide others a copy of this page. (Google, Alexa)
  • Noimageindex - Do not index images used on this page. (AltaVista, HotBot, others)
  • Noimageclick - Link only to the page for any indexed images. (AltaVista, HotBot, others)
  • None - Shorthand. Do not index this page or images, archive or follow it's links.
Only index and follow are affirmative values, the rest may only be recognized in the negative (Nothis) context. If a page is not to be indexed or followed, archiving would serve no purpose.
All (overrides specific ones below)
Noindex   Nofollow   Noarchive  
Noimageindex   Noimageclick
None (overrides all above)

Expires - The date and time after which this document should be considered stale. If you do not supply this tag, it means 'never' or whatever your server may provide. Use a tool like Spade in crawling or browsing mode, to see what headers your server is already providing. An "illegal" value like "0" is intended to mean 'now', but may not work, especially if the robot or agent sends the server an "If-Modified-Since: itslastcopytime" 'HEAD' query.

A page which was recently modified and has expired will likely be scheduled for revisiting sooner. Your server may already be openly 'squealing' on when all static documents were "Last-Modified" or providing a default Expiry: header, which defeats any meta tag ploy. You should never try to force any header conflicting with one that the server is already configured to produce on it's own! Time must be in the GMT format, as shown.

You can only use the 'dynamic' SSI method perfectly if your server can be configured to support server side includes (SSI-chunked) for whatever 'plain' type (.htm, .html) of document extension you pick to use. Robots will 'know' that a .shtml, .asp, .php or cfm document is a dynamic sort of 'chunked' page, and naturally expect it to be a 'modified now' file. SSI gives you a form of cache control, your pages get 'Last-Modified' (and can thus expire) every time they are requested, so they may be a bit slower for visitors to reload!

Server settings offer you alternate means of managing this task automatically for plain, static documents and images only.

*Robot Revisit Interval - Suggests how often your document should be re-visited by cooperative robots. If the content and the documents "Last-Modified" time and it's expiry date has not changed within the specified period, after the second revisit, this suggestion (and possibly the page itself) will be ignored (search engine spanking) in future! Use this carefully! Suggest the number of "days", "weeks" or "months". Format is thus: 1 day, 2 days, 1 week, 2 weeks 1 month, 2 months etc.. Don't worry too much about the robot updating your listing every day - even '10 days' may be optimistic...
  < Leave blank to ignore!

*Character Set - Default HTML charset is ISO-8859-1 (Western European 8-bit). If your server uses a shakey platform like Windows, and even on UX-IX-Mac this tag is of paramount importance if your page contains any sort of user input(form) that communicates directly with the server software or cgi scripts running on it.

Language - Used to declare the natural language of the document. Often used by robots to categorize the language of the page. It can also be used by the server to locate a document in the language appropriate for the Accept-Language header the browser sends when requesting pages. These are generic language codes. You may wish to specify the dialect or need to add several more specific dialects (-CAPS) in the form: "en-US, en-GB, en-AU, en-NZ" (do this manually). No dialect is same as all, so adding them may restrict your distribution.

A complete list of all ISO-639 language codes is at Oasis.org
  (? add a typical English dialect ?)  

Distribution - Geographic information of value to some search engines and directory indexers. This may restrict a page from being listed even if it is indexed and has contributed to the relevancy of the page(s) linking to or linked from it. Works in conjunction with Language-dialects or Character Set encodings above to define the 'Local' region(s). Can be important for 'generic' Top Level Domains (.com .cc) that have no natural geographic baggage.

Rating - Simple voluntary content rating. Easily recognized by most child protection software. This may permit your pages to be viewed or restrict their visibility and listing.

If it is important that your site be viewable by children and sensitive adults you must obtain an official, genuine Pics-Label meta tag (only one is needed for your whole site) from http://www.icra.org/ in place of these default, simple ones!

Choose 'Pics-Label' to paste it in below, or choose 'Ignore' and add one to your homepage later.
   (? Pics-Label ?)  

*Window Target: - Prevents most newer browsers from letting other websites open your pages within their frameset pages! This is only one method of accomplishing this, Javascript can (also) be used as well, but it is not as reliable! DO NOT USE on framed pagelets!

Smart(ie) Tags: - An insidious Microsoft Windows XP(preview release) plot to turn all webpages on the web into 'Microsoft Spam-Linked' pages, where any word on your page that corresponds to a keyword purchased from Microsoft will be defaced into a special link to a Microsoft site or some Microsoft clients website! You must expressly Opt-Out by adding this important tag to (hopefully) prohibit this evil IE6 browser behavior! Microsoft insists that even though they temporarily 'disabled' it in the final IE6 version, they will continue to develop and deploy this spam system, (Office XP) barring copyright or class action suits by webmasters.

Others (ezula.com) are now also getting in on this malicious 'action' with a third party software virus that defaces all pages shown in Outlook mail or on the Internet Explorer browser (using the same mechanism), that apparently cannot even be 'shut off' like this!!! (a Toptext plugin-detecting JavaScript that tells IE-infected visitors to bug-off is in order)

Optional, Less Common Tags: -Leave blank or choose Ignore.

Document Type Description (DTD) - Alerts a few browsers and 'tag validation' robots of the basic IETF or W3C rules you have used to compose your version of HTML coding. If you use CSS (added style commands) 'HTML 4.0 Transitional' is the closest option. If you have basic pages using only normal HTML and some JavaScript, 'HTML 3.2' is the most universal value. Unless visitors have problems viewing your pages that you cannot pin down, and you wish to use a validator program to check your code, avoid this nonsense entirely!

Unlike the old volunteer IETF, the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) has degenerated into a dysfunctional 'Club of Suits' determined to sabotage it's workings into promoting HTML obsolescence rather than defining working standards. These newer DTDs are just imaginary notions that are scarcely supported and widely ignored. Both HTML '4.0' and '4.0 Strict' contained deep flaws that leave much of them fundamentally incompatible with any reliable HTML rendering standard. (most web browsers)

Only Netscape 6.0 comes near to some sort of full compliance with the backwards incompatible, "absolute size and positioning" CSS stew they've concocted. 4.0 Strict and 4.01 are the personalized "Ford Expedition Limousines" of the browser warriors, little of the advanced stuff in these notions is or ever will likely be suitable for the public web without deploying elaborate browser snooping and multiple site versions. Very little in these DTDs works the same across different browsers, or platforms, or if certain browser settings are changed. Expect many fixes and correct HTML tags to be reported as "wrong" against any sort of dreamy W3C HTML 'validator'!

One might also add the URL of the specific recommended ruleset (DTD) you are following to the end of a '4.0' tag, but this just damages legacy workaround rendering support for many long established older cross browser behaviors in Netscape 6 which is the only browser that attempts to put this extraneous information to use (even 'loose' type is NOT SAFE!).

There is no DTD that correctly verifies modern, universal HTML 'neo3.2<4.0' coding that animates, degrades gracefully and works flawlessly in all browsers, although this form of HTML coding is the real, defacto standard on the web today!

You may choose a language for the DTD specifications. Caution: an entirely weird and wasteful "well formedness" (you can tell from the term) mutation of HTML syntax is required in all new 'XHTML 1.0' xml-type pages!!
  (? Insist on a language ?)  

Cache Control - Used to instruct mostly proxy servers and web browsers not to cache (save local copies of) this document. Depends on your server and the type of document(static or SSI). For static documents this can be much better accomplished by server settings. This is very similar in purpose and function to Expires=(often-sooner) header setting choices above. If and when this works, it will slow down access to users returning to this document, by forcing reloads!

These tags may not always work in all situations, actual server headers are the 'bullet-proof' method.

Base Link Target - Redirects all default (non-targeted) links to load pages into another, named window. All browsers load links in the current window (codenamed "_self") by default. If you use the codename "_blank" as a target, a new "unnamed" window will open, if you make up a name, it opens in a new window that goes by the name you gave it. WebTV has only one window, and cannot perform these new window behaviors!

If you use frames, each frame "window" also has a name, so you can make links in one frame load pages into another, which does work on WebTV. Other codenames, "_top" and "_parent" apply to nested frames. Specify a window name to overide the default behavior: (using the value "_top" is a great framebuster!)
 (?) the window name >  


Shortcut Icon - Directs some Microsoft browsers to download, save and use a particular "shortcut icon" which can be left on the Windows desktop, or used as an "icon" to represent the site within their lame multiple "shortcut files" bookmarking file folder system. Windows users can copy and leave shortcuts to this 'Internet Shortcut File' strewn all over their Windows file systems, desktops etc..

You must create and publish a Microsoft Windows icon image and place it on your server for this to work. The "standard" name for this file is "favicon.ico" and, by default, Internet Explorer 'expects' to find a 'favicon.ico' in each folder that contains a webpage whenever a bookmark is made. You may have as few or as many as you like for different pages or areas of your site and/or specify more unique names for them if you use this tag.

Specify both a (../)relative, complete (http://) or (/)absolute server path and the name of 'your.ico' file to use for this page:
 (?) file /path/name.ico >  

Special Page Entry Effects - Supported by some of the newest browsers. This tag allows you to use a small command to create a fancy page loading effect for a very small, fast page without bulky scripting or applets. Older browsers simply ignore either this or the more reliable 'Exit' version. You may need to adjust the time (4, or 4.0 seconds is preselected) to get this one to work, there are many things that will interfere with it! Neither Effect works on Reload. Use either Entry or Exiting tags throughout a site, or the effects will clash!

Special Page Exiting Effects - As above, works very reliably when exiting a page of any size or complexity. This is the better choice!

Email - Someones (author/owner/etc) hidden email address. It is wise to encode this to protect the address from harvesting by spammers. To encode it, change a few letters into their ASCII equivalents (eg: the letter 'a' is the same as '&#97;') Only visible when source is viewed.

Owner - Name of website owner, organization, or webmaster/designer. Will likely not be indexed by a search engine, of little use or value. Only visible when source is viewed.

Author - Name(s) of web page author(s) or last persons to edit the page. Will likely not be indexed by a search engine, but may provide a way for you to track co-author-publishers on your site. Only visible when source is viewed.

Copyright - Insert your copyright statement and name of it's owner. Likely will not be indexed by a search engine, but will provide an additional way for you to hide this information within your HTML pages. Only visible when source is viewed.

This page requires Javascript and runs entirely within your browser. No information is sent to us! Please contact us if you have any questions or suggestions!
Force XHTML-compatible well 'formedness' syntax?
(Ignore if a XHTML DTD was chosen above)


Copy and Paste the following code and use it as the very top part of your page before the </head> tag appears.
(Retain existing <style> or <script> elements, if present!)


Summary Report:

Certain oddball function tags, such as the "Refresh" ones that load new pages after a delay, or force the page to reload itself after a period have been intentionally left out of this generator.

In 10 seconds go away:

<meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="10; http://a-tricky-page.com">

In 10 seconds come back:

<meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="10">

Only use tags of this sort on pages that have special purposes of no value to search engines, since the page will likely be ignored! We also left out the <link rev made=""> tag containing an email address which is long disused, and pointless Generator and Formatter meta name content as well as the Contributors one.

The W3C have decided to resurrect a new version of the old Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (V1.1) as some sort of 'official' Meta Tag standard for XHTML 1.0 DTDs. This also includes a 'recommended' way of using something like an embedded or external RDF metadata sheet to house these tags. Rest assured that most search engines do not yet accomodate these odd sorts of metadata, but many schools, libraries, and scientific search engines have always used them! They are not suitable to replace most of the normal tags above, and at most, they only augment Descriptions, Keywords, Distribution, Organization, Author-related, and Document-type stuff.

You may wish to try the DC Dot Automatic Dublin Core Generator to create these DC.tags (from a page with an existing normal tag set) to augment those above! One must usually choose either the normal or the DC.tags, since robots have restricted memories, may only "read" the first 10-12KBytes of a page and it may do little good to clutter the head of your documents with both sorts!





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