Taking Your Talent to the Web |
197 |
<META> <META> HINEY HO!
Though <META> tags have many purposes, web designers and developers most often use them for one of two reasons:
■Accommodating search engines
■Reloading pages or forwarding visitors to an updated page
Regardless of the application, <META> tags are placed in the <HEAD> section of HTML markup. That is, all <META> elements show up between the <HEAD> and the </HEAD> tags. Now let’s wrap our own <HEADS> around them to see how this all works:
Search Me
When Aunt Moira (the old battleaxe) enlists the help of a search engine to find a topic or subject, one way in which the search engine might sort data is through <META> tags. Some search engines compare search words with <META> descriptions, and they return the web pages that provide the best matches, as in the following:
<META NAME= “author” CONTENT= “your name”>
<META NAME= “description” CONTENT= “page description”>
<META NAME= “keywords” CONTENT= “keywords that apply to your page”> <META NAME= “generator” CONTENT= “the editor you used to create your page”> <META NAME= “copyright” CONTENT= “date of copyright”>
<META NAME= “expires” CONTENT= “expiration date”>
Most corporate and business-to-business sites will include only the <DESCRIPTION>, <KEYWORD>, and <COPYRIGHT> tags. After all, AT&T does not need its customers to know who designed the site, what tool they used to edit the HTML, or how old (and outdated) the page may be.
Aside from <HTTP-EQUIV> (the widely accepted predecessor to <DOCTYPE>), there is no reliable standard for <META>. Most search engines rarely use them (Google, for instance, ignores them). Those such as Altavista and Hotbot, which once relied on them extensively, pay them less and less heed as time goes by. Good <TITLE> tags and good, descriptive page copy are more effective at scoring with search engines and directories.
198 HOW: HTML, the Building Blocks of Life Itself: <META> <META> Hiney Ho!
In spite of everything we’ve said, some search engines and directories do pay attention to these tags, and it sometimes falls to the designer to write them. So let’s look at some good and bad ones. Here is a good one:
<META NAME= “description” CONTENT= “Widgets.com builds reliable widgets for the lubrication industry. As the American Midwest’s largest developer and supplier of indus- trial-strength widgetry, we offer a product line of 2,000 parts as well as custom products built to your specifications. Standard products ship in 48 hours in the Continental U.S., and within three business days to lubricant concerns in Europe, Asia, and Africa.”>
<META NAME= “keywords” CONTENT= “widgets, lubricants, lubrication, industry, U.S., midwest, developer, supplier, industrial strength, widgetry, 2,000, standard, parts, custom, product, development, shipping, 48 hours, Canda, Europe, Asia, Africa”>
<META NAME= “copyright” CONTENT= “12 January 2001”>
And here is a bad use of <META> tags:
<META NAME= “description” CONTENT= “Welcome to our home page on the World Wide Web! We are happy to serve you. Please do not hesitate to call on our reliable staff if we may serve you better in any way, shape, or form. This site is under construction. Some links may not work and some pages that we are going to make later have not shown up yet because we are still arguing about them in the boardroom. All our products are proudly made in the good old U.S. of A. We are a good company that has serious social concerns. Kids, stay in school. Hugs, not drugs. Have a nice day.”>
<META NAME= “keywords” CONTENT= “welcome, to, our, home, page, which, is, under, construction, serving, you, proudly, since, 1955, but, not, the, website, which, as, we, mentioned, is, under, construction”>
<META NAME= “author” CONTENT= “your name here”>
<META NAME= “generator” CONTENT= “Hot Dog Pro”>
The good <META> tags help search engines hone in on what the site actually has to offer. The bad <META> tags consign the site to the dung heap, where it will never be found by any living soul—unless they are searching for serve + kids + drugs.
Raw-elbowed marketing idiots, who are legion on the Internet, used to try to “upgrade” their search engine rankings by repeating certain keywords— a practice referred to as keyword spamming.
<META NAME= “keywords” CONTENT= “widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets,
Taking Your Talent to the Web |
199 |
widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets, widgets”>
Needless to say, this no longer works, and if anything, you and the widgets you rode in on will be dropped to the very bottom of any halfway relevant search—or kicked out of the database altogether. Kids, don’t try this at home (page).
As we say, most search engines ignore <META> tags, so if you want your site to be found, focus on developing relevant body text and <TITLE> tags. “Welcome to our home page on the World Wide Web” is not relevant text. “Widgets.com builds reliable widgets for the lubrication industry” is relevant, if unsavory, text. <TITLE> tags and body text are weighted more heavily than <META> tags, even by search engines that consider all three (<META> tags, <TITLE> tags, and body text). This is because it is easy for liars to lard their <META> tags with exciting buzzwords that have little to do with what the site actually offers. Body text—text seen by visitors—is therefore given precedence over the wishful thinking that goes on inside the <META> tag.
Everything we’ve just told you is probably outdated and irrelevant by now. Visit www.searchenginewatch.com to get the latest specifics on search engine ranking.
At a bad shop, <META> tags (and indeed, sometimes, body text) will be written at the last minute by a recent college graduate with no experience in marketing, communications, or the Web. When shopping for a job, don’t simply judge the company by its graphic design. Peek under the hood for evidence of a caring, intelligent environment—or a sweatshop that bangs work out with little regard for its success or failure in the marketplace.
Wow, we’ve just saved you from taking a really bad job. This book is turning out to be worth every penny you paid for it, isn’t it? You ought to buy copies for all your friends, and save them from taking bad jobs, too.
Another type of <META> tag (the <META HTTP-EQUIV>) does another type of job and is worth mentioning.
200 HOW: HTML, the Building Blocks of Life Itself: A Comment About <COMMENTS>
Take a (Re)Load Off
There are times where you want a page to hesitate and then reload. Though this may sound like a tricky process, <META HTTP-EQUIV> tags make it barnyard-simple:
<META HTTP-EQUIV= “REFRESH” CONTENT= “x; URL=http://www.widgets.com/”>
In this code example, <x> represents the number of seconds before the refresh or reload occurs, and the URL refers to the page currently being viewed. (Obviously, you would replace <x> with <10>, <6>, or however many seconds you wish to have elapse before the page reloads itself. There is no limit, to our knowledge, on how many seconds that may be. The browser tells time via the operating system. Uncanny, is it not?) Given that the visitor is already at www.widgets.com, why spell out the full URL instead of a relative URL (such as index.html)? Trust us on this one. (If you don’t trust us, using a relative URL will usually work, but can be problematic if the page you’re refreshing gets moved or renamed, which web pages often do. Full URLs make for better, safer maintenance in this instance.)
You also can use this technique to forward the visitor from an old, outdated page to a shiny new one:
<META HTTP-EQUIV= “REFRESH” CONTENT= “x; URL=http://www.widgets.com/newindex.html”>
Many HTML experts, being spoilsports who live in Ivory Towers and probably never laugh even at really funny jokes like the one about the traveling salesman, the farmer, the hippie, and the bus driver, disapprove of this entire procedure. They recommend that you forward web users to new pages (if need be) by using JavaScript. However, this <META> tag technique does work, even with old, non-JavaScript-capable browsers.
A COMMENT ABOUT <COMMENTS>
In your career as a web designer, you will sometimes create entire sites by yourself from scratch. Most of the time, though, you will be working with a team. Occasionally, you will inherit an existing site that needs to be
|
Taking Your Talent to the Web |
201 |
redesigned or updated. At other times, you will be creating a site for some- |
|
|
one else to update. All these situations are best served if you comment the |
|
|
code as you write it. Referring once again to the code used earlier in this |
|
|
chapter: |
|
|
<!-- Begin menu bar. --> |
|
|
<table border=”0” cellpadding=”0” cellspacing=”0” align=”center”> |
|
|
<tr> |
|
|
<td> |
|
|
<a href=”reading.html”><img |
src=”reading.gif” width=”20” height=”20” border=”0” |
|
alt=”Reading”></a> |
|
|
</td> |
|
|
<td> |
|
|
<a href=”writing.html”><img |
src=”writing.gif” width=”20” height=”20” border=”0” |
|
alt=”Writing”></a> |
|
|
</td> |
|
|
<td> |
|
|
<a href=”arithmetic.html”><img src=”arithmetic.gif” width=”20” height=”20” border=”0” alt=”Arithmetic”></a>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<!-- End menu bar. -->
<Begin menu bar> and <End menu bar> are the comments that help you (or a teammate or successor) figure out what was intended by all that wacky HTML. They are always enclosed within <!-- special brackets --> so that they will not be displayed on the web page. Even if you routinely work alone (say, as a freelancer), comments will help you find your way when you return to an HTML document you haven’t looked at for six months. Professional web designers always comment their markup.
In Chapter 2 we mentioned that designers could save bandwidth by removing white space from their HTML documents. We also mentioned that most of us refrain from this practice because it interferes with the need to continually update existing web documents. Comments exist to facilitate that need. No further comment.