Meta tags are an essential element for SEO success, but can be overlooked by negligent web operators. This article explains what meta tags are, how they are used and how different search engines use them.

Many businesses implementing SEO campaigns know of meta tags and their importance, but very few understand what makes them so darned special. I’ll admit, it can be confusing to those who don’t deal with these tags on a daily basis. That’s because each search engine put their own emphasis on different factors of meta tags, leaving much to be desired from an SEO standpoint for consistency. SEO firms understand these differences, so you can worry about running your business, not your SEO. But part of our jobs as SEO experts is to educate, so this article will explain what meta tags are, how they are used and how different search engines use them.

Meta tags are lines of HTML code that are embedded into web pages that are used by search engines to store information and categorize your webpages correctly. They contain keywords, descriptions, copyright information, site and pages titles and are essential for any well-built site. However, they are not "required" when creating web pages and can be overlooked or ignored by web designers, developers or operators. Those ignorant few are left scratching their heads when they don’t rank very well at all.

When you create a website and register the URL with the search engines, the spiders are sent to crawl the site and index it. Each search engine operates in a slightly different way, so they weigh the elements of a site according their own algorithms. Some place emphasis on the description tag, such as AltaVista. Other search engines, like Exactseek, are meta tag purists, as stated in their user policy: "Your site will not be added if it does not have Title and Meta description tags."

Recently, some search engines have downplayed the importance of meta tags due to spam. Some SEO "specialists" were keyword stuffing their tags with irrelevant information, just to get traffic. To penalize this abuse, some search engines don’t assign too much weight to the keywords in meta tags, but they still check to make sure they are relevant. Either way, if you don’t have meta tags, or they are stuffed with irrelevant keywords, you will be not rank well at all.

Meta tags should always be placed in the HTML, just after the tag. Make sure there are no line breaks, otherwise it will be ignored and labeled "bad code". Avoid using any capitalization in your code, as well as any repetition in terms within the keyword tag. The meta tag description is displayed by most search engines along with the page title in the SERPs. It is important to keep the meta description short, concise and relevant to your site content.

The Internet is growing so rapidly and the search engines are trying their best to keep up. Meta tags are a common standard for the engine spiders to properly categorize websites. To ensure that your site is indexed correctly and show up in the rankings, it is important that you cover all the bases in your meta tags. Using proper meta tags will only help bring you traffic, rankings, a friendly relationship with search engines, and ongoing SEO success.