THE WSG RECOMMENDS the
use of <TITLE> and <META> tags in all UCSB Web
pages. Title and meta tags are part of the HTML header of a
Web page. The title tag creates the words that appear in the
top bar of your Web browser. A meta tag provides information
to Web crawlers, such as the AUTHOR, KEYWORD, and DESCRIPTION.
Title and meta tags factor prominently in how your pages are
ranked by many of the top search engines.
<TITLE> tag:
The HTML code for a title tag looks like this:
<TITLE>Chemistry Department Home Page</TITLE>
The title tag belongs in the <HEAD> section of your source
code, and is generally followed by your Meta description and
Meta keywords tags.
The <TITLE> tag should be short (ideally seven words
or less) and descriptive. Keep in mind that this will be the
title in users' bookmarks, so if every page title starts with "University
of California Santa Barbara" then all bookmarks will look
alike. Put the more significant part of the name first, e.g.,
"<title>Meta Tags - Web Standards - UCSB</title>".
<META> tags:
WSG recommends that the following <META> tags be used
in all campus Web pages:
-
content-language – 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. All RFC1766 compliant languages
are supported.
e.g., <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Language" CONTENT="EN-US">
-
content-type – Using this tag is recommended.
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.
e.g., <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html;
charset=ISO-8859-1">
-
author – Typically the unqualified author's
name. WSG recommends using the name of the organization responsible
for the page.
e.g., <META NAME="author" CONTENT="Office
of Public Affairs, webmaster@ia.ucsb.edu">
-
copyright – Typically an unqualified copyright
statement. WSG recommends using the UC Regents, as shown
in the example.
e.g., <META NAME="copyright" CONTENT="©
Copyright 2005 The Regents of the University of California">
-
description – A short, plain-language description
of the document. Used by search engines to describe your
document. Particularly important if your document has very
little text, is a frameset, or has extensive scripts at the
top.
e.g., <META NAME="description" CONTENT="THE
UCSB NEWS PAGE features the latest news and press releases
from the University of California, Santa Barbara.">
-
keywords – Keywords used by search engines
to index your document in addition to words from the title
and document body. Typically used for synonyms and alternates
of title words.
e.g., <META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="news,
press releases">
These <META> tags are considered optional:
-
expires – Expiration date of the document,
e.g.,
<META HTTP-EQUIV="expires" CONTENT="Wed,
26 Feb 2006 08:21:57 GMT">
-
pragma – Causes the browsers to not locally
cache documents, e.g., <META HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma"
CONTENT="no-cache">
-
cache-control – Specifies the action of cache
agents (i.e. proxy servers).
-
robots – Controls Web robots on a per-page
basis. Specifies whether to index the page and/or follow
links.
-
pics-label – Includes rating information in terms
of adult content so content filters can do their job.
-
rating – To indicate the rating of the site in
terms of adult content, e.g., <META NAME="rating" CONTENT="GENERAL">
WSG is continuing the discussion of <META> tags. Examples
and additional tags will be added to this page.
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