Optional META Tags

There are a number of other META tags that you can add to your site. All search engines expect to see Title tags, major search engines recognise Description, Keywords & Robots tags. Other specialist search directories may make use of other tags.

Author Tag

This meta tag reference's the name of the person who created the HTML or XML document being viewed. If you use this tag, it is recommended to use the author's first and last name, but it is not recommended to include the author's e-mail address due to a heavy increase in Spam. The tag looks like:


Sample of an Author META tag


Content Type Tag

Content should contain either global, local or iu (for Internal Use). The Content tag will look like:


Example of a Content type meta tag


It is now recommended to always use this tag, even with the previously-default charset ISO-8859-1. Failure to do so may cause display problems where, for instance, the document uses UTF-8 punctuation characters but is displayed in ISO or ASCII charsets.

Content-Style-Type Tag

Specifies the default style sheet language for a document and looks like this:


Example of a Content Style type meta tag


This is recognised by every search engine.

Content-Language Tag

May be used to declare the natural language of the document. May be used by robots to categorize by language. The corresponding Accept-Language header (sent by a browser) causes a server to select an appropriate natural language document. This tag looks like:


Example of a Content Language meta tag


Languages are specified as the pair (language-dialect) here it is English-British.

Copyright Tag

To include copyright, trademark, patent or other information pertaining to intellectual property.
The tag looks like:


Example of a Copyright meta tag

Distribution Tag

To declare the distribution of your web content. There are three classifications of distribution: Global (the entire web), Local (reserved for the local IP block of your site), & IU (Internal Use, not for public distribution). The tag looks like:


Sample distribution (of content) Meta Tag


If you want to restricted distribution, it is better to use the robots.txt tag or your htaccess file.

Revisit Tag

If you are going to be updating your site regularly, search engines will find it helpful if you request the return of their robots to revisit your site after a certain time. It is recommended that you use a time frame between 3 weeks to 6 months. The tag looks like:


Example of a Revisit meta tag

Scripting-Language Tag

Specifies the default scripting language in a document and looks like:


Example of a Scripting Language meta tag

Search Engine Specific Tag

Various search engines often require you to add tags to fit in with their programs. For example, Google want you to add a verify tag when you use their Webmaster Tools program and specificly when you want to add Google XML Sitemaps. The Google Verify tag looks like:


Example of Google specific Verify meta tag

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