{"id":595,"date":"2017-03-04T18:45:04","date_gmt":"2017-03-04T16:45:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/?p=595"},"modified":"2018-03-04T22:24:07","modified_gmt":"2018-03-04T20:24:07","slug":"meta-tags-facts-myths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/","title":{"rendered":"HTML Meta Tags: Facts and Myths"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The<a href=\"http:\/\/html-css-js.com\/html\/tags\/#meta\"> HTML meta tag<\/a> is surrounded with confusion. It serves many purposes and most people don\u2019t understand its many uses. Many people spam keywords in their meta tags to increase their SEO, whilst others use it for site redirects; are these methods effective? We\u2019re going to uncover the truth about meta tags.<\/strong><br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<h2>Do meta keywords &amp; description improve search engine ranking?<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-596\" src=\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/meta-tags.jpg\" alt=\"meta tag myths\" width=\"247\" height=\"252\" \/>The short answer: no they do not. Meta keywords are generally not worth your time to add. However the meta description is often used by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/\">Google<\/a> to display the site page\u2019s description instead of it automatically generating something based off the page\u2019s content. This does not however make your web page rank any higher. In case you don\u2019t know how to make a meta description you just do the following:<\/p>\n<p><code>&lt;meta name=\"description\" content=\"You put your site's description here.\"\/&gt;<\/code><\/p>\n<h2>Is using meta redirects a good idea?<\/h2>\n<p>Yes and no, depending on the circumstances. If your site has moved and you want to redirect people to your new site I would not advise you to use it unless you don\u2019t have access to a server side language such as PHP. Google automatically ignores pages that are redirects and does not follow where the page redirects to. It\u2019d be a much better choice to send a redirection header, which Google does follow. You can do so in PHP like this:<\/p>\n<p><code>header('Location:http:\/\/newsite.example.com');<\/code><\/p>\n<p>If you would like to know how to make meta redirects and don\u2019t know already you can use the following HTML snippet:<\/p>\n<p><code>&lt;meta http-equiv=\"Refresh\" content=\"10;url=http:\/\/www.example.com\"\/&gt;<\/code><\/p>\n<p>You can replace \u201c10\u2033 with the number of seconds you\u2019d like the page to wait before redirecting.<br \/>\nIn conclusion, avoid meta redirects if possible.<\/p>\n<h2>Is stopping bots from indexing certain pages OK to do with meta tags?<\/h2>\n<p>It is OK, but you have to realize a couple things:<br \/>\n1) Only the \u2018friendly\u2019 bots (such as Google, Yahoo and MSN) will not index the page.<br \/>\n2) Using\u00a0<em>robots.txt\u00a0<\/em>is much easier to do than individually adding a meta tag to each page you don\u2019t want search engines to index.<\/p>\n<p>For those who don\u2019t know how to use meta tags to stop search engines from indexing a page you add this to the header section:<\/p>\n<p><code>&lt;meta name=\"robots\" content=\"NOINDEX\"\/&gt;<\/code><\/p>\n<h2>What are some other uses of the meta tag?<\/h2>\n<p>The meta tag has many other uses in addition to the ones mentioned above. For example you can add copyrights like this:<\/p>\n<p><code>&lt;meta name=\"copyright\" CONTENT=\"&amp;copy; 2010 My Company\"&gt;<\/code><\/p>\n<p>You can also declare character sets which will let your site validate (assuming there are no other errors) like this:<\/p>\n<p><code>&lt;meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=UTF-8\"\/&gt;<\/code><\/p>\n<p>If you want ONLY Google not to index your page you can do this:<\/p>\n<p><code>&lt;meta name=\"GOOGLEBOT\" content=\"NOARCHIVE\"\/&gt;<\/code><\/p>\n<p>We hope this article helped you out. Please note that we don&#8217;t know for sure how search engines\u00a0rank a page. This article has been written according to our experience but these practices may change any time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The HTML meta tag is surrounded with confusion. It serves many purposes and most people don\u2019t understand its many uses. Many people spam keywords in their meta tags to increase their SEO, whilst others use it for site redirects; are these methods effective? We\u2019re going to uncover the truth about meta tags.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-html"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>HTML Meta Tags: Facts and myths you didn&#039;t know about<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The HTML meta tag is surrounded with confusion. It serves many purposes and most people don\u2019t understand its many uses. spam keywords in their meta tags\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"HTML Meta Tags: Facts and myths you didn&#039;t know about\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The HTML meta tag is surrounded with confusion. It serves many purposes and most people don\u2019t understand its many uses. spam keywords in their meta tags\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"HTML Online\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/htmlcoding\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-03-04T16:45:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-03-04T20:24:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/meta-tags.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"HTML Editor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"HTML Editor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"HTML Editor\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/#\/schema\/person\/019f9afa07f209153df0fecfc90b8c1d\"},\"headline\":\"HTML Meta Tags: Facts and Myths\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-03-04T16:45:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-03-04T20:24:07+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/\"},\"wordCount\":473,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/meta-tags.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Articles\",\"HTML\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/\",\"name\":\"HTML Meta Tags: Facts and myths you didn't know about\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/meta-tags.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-03-04T16:45:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-03-04T20:24:07+00:00\",\"description\":\"The HTML meta tag is surrounded with confusion. It serves many purposes and most people don\u2019t understand its many uses. spam keywords in their meta tags\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/meta-tags.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/meta-tags.jpg\",\"width\":247,\"height\":252,\"caption\":\"meta tag myths\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"HTML Meta Tags: Facts and Myths\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/\",\"name\":\"HTML Online Articles\",\"description\":\"Tips, tricks, tutorials\u2026\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/#organization\",\"name\":\"HTML Online\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/logo.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/logo.jpg\",\"width\":350,\"height\":350,\"caption\":\"HTML Online\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/htmlcoding\/\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/ferencdenes\/\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCn38Jw1sJzbjVHO95Zp0Sww\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/#\/schema\/person\/019f9afa07f209153df0fecfc90b8c1d\",\"name\":\"HTML Editor\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7c1d8f5e7f1dc3e261766a96ac50c6a907fa5c236e87ab73379c57c9114e92cd?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7c1d8f5e7f1dc3e261766a96ac50c6a907fa5c236e87ab73379c57c9114e92cd?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"HTML Editor\"},\"description\":\"In 2013, while wrestling with a mountain of client articles and an uncooperative CMS, I decided enough was enough. So, I created an online HTML editor purely out of necessity (and mild frustration). What began as a tool for my own sanity quickly evolved into a gift for the world\u2014or at least for anyone trying to avoid breaking their website's code. Since then, I've shared my tech notes on my blog, which serves as both a handy reference and a digital diary of the adventures and misadventures of a coder.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/ferencdenes\/\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@htmlg\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"HTML Meta Tags: Facts and myths you didn't know about","description":"The HTML meta tag is surrounded with confusion. It serves many purposes and most people don\u2019t understand its many uses. spam keywords in their meta tags","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"HTML Meta Tags: Facts and myths you didn't know about","og_description":"The HTML meta tag is surrounded with confusion. It serves many purposes and most people don\u2019t understand its many uses. spam keywords in their meta tags","og_url":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/","og_site_name":"HTML Online","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/htmlcoding\/","article_published_time":"2017-03-04T16:45:04+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-03-04T20:24:07+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/meta-tags.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"HTML Editor","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"HTML Editor","Estimated reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/"},"author":{"name":"HTML Editor","@id":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/#\/schema\/person\/019f9afa07f209153df0fecfc90b8c1d"},"headline":"HTML Meta Tags: Facts and Myths","datePublished":"2017-03-04T16:45:04+00:00","dateModified":"2018-03-04T20:24:07+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/"},"wordCount":473,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/meta-tags.jpg","articleSection":["Articles","HTML"],"inLanguage":"en-GB"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/","url":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/","name":"HTML Meta Tags: Facts and myths you didn't know about","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/meta-tags.jpg","datePublished":"2017-03-04T16:45:04+00:00","dateModified":"2018-03-04T20:24:07+00:00","description":"The HTML meta tag is surrounded with confusion. It serves many purposes and most people don\u2019t understand its many uses. spam keywords in their meta tags","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/meta-tags.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/meta-tags.jpg","width":247,"height":252,"caption":"meta tag myths"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/meta-tags-facts-myths\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"HTML Meta Tags: Facts and Myths"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/#website","url":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/","name":"HTML Online Articles","description":"Tips, tricks, tutorials\u2026","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-GB"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/#organization","name":"HTML Online","url":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/logo.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/logo.jpg","width":350,"height":350,"caption":"HTML Online"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/htmlcoding\/","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/ferencdenes\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCn38Jw1sJzbjVHO95Zp0Sww"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/#\/schema\/person\/019f9afa07f209153df0fecfc90b8c1d","name":"HTML Editor","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7c1d8f5e7f1dc3e261766a96ac50c6a907fa5c236e87ab73379c57c9114e92cd?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7c1d8f5e7f1dc3e261766a96ac50c6a907fa5c236e87ab73379c57c9114e92cd?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"HTML Editor"},"description":"In 2013, while wrestling with a mountain of client articles and an uncooperative CMS, I decided enough was enough. So, I created an online HTML editor purely out of necessity (and mild frustration). What began as a tool for my own sanity quickly evolved into a gift for the world\u2014or at least for anyone trying to avoid breaking their website's code. Since then, I've shared my tech notes on my blog, which serves as both a handy reference and a digital diary of the adventures and misadventures of a coder.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/ferencdenes\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@htmlg"]}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":597,"href":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions\/597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}