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Metadata & Search Engines |
Search engines are becoming increasingly
important as a navigation tool by users of the World Wide Web.
Understanding how they work and optimizing your web pages
for use by search engines can dramatically increase traffic
to
your site. |
Types of Search Engines |
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Search engines work in a variety of ways, but fall into
two basic types:
- Crawler-based search engines (Google, Verity, AltaVista)
send automated applications through the web, capturing
information
from
metadata and body content, and then sort and categorize
the information based on the content rules. These crawlers
are
also referred to
as "spiders" and "robots" or "bots."
- Directories are search engines (Yahoo, LookSmart) powered
by human beings. Human editors compile all the listings
that
directories
have. Getting listed with the web's key directories is
very important, because their listings are seen by many
people. In addition, if you are listed with them, then
crawler-based search engines are more likely to find your
site and add it to their listings for free.
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Definitions |
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Metadata consists of content included between the head and
body tags that does not display on your page but is readable
by search engines. Iin addition to the
page title, always define meta keywords and descriptions. |
Optimize your pages for search
engines |
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- Meta-tags consists of content included between the head and
body tags that does not display on your page but is readable
by search engines.
- Title tag - The text you use in the title tag is one of the most important factors in how a search engine may decide to rank your web page. Failure to put target keywords in the title tag is the main reason why perfectly relevant web pages may be poorly ranked. In addition, all major crawlers will use the text of your title tag as the text they use for the title of your page in their listings.
- Meta description - The meta description tag allows you to influence the description of your page in some search engines.
- Meta keywords - The meta keywords tag allows you to provide additional text for crawler-based search engines to index along with your body copy. Most crawlers now ignore the meta keywords tag, however the Verity Ultraseek search engine used at The University of Utah still supports keyword tags.
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- Frequency and location of keywords can have an impact
on search-ability. Some search engines analyze how often
a keyword appears on a page, and how close to the top of
a page it is located, and assigns greater wieght to those
words.
Other tools used by search engines to evaluate web page
relevance include "off the page" criteria such
as link analysis and click-through measurement. Although
these criteria are
difficult to optimize for, it is important to understand
how they work
- Link analysis evaluates web page relevance by how often
other sites link to the page.
By
analyzing how pages link to each other, a search engine
can both
determine what a page is about and whether that page
is deemed to be "important" and thus deserving
of a ranking boost.
- Click-through measurement means that
a
search engine may watch what results someone selects
for a particular search, then eventually drop high-ranking
pages that aren't attracting clicks, while promoting
lower-ranking
pages that do pull in visitors.
- As tempting as it may be to load your web pages with
metadata, keyword repetition, and link prevalence, search
engines have sophisticated tools to help weed out pages
designed to cheat the system and artificially increase
search results. Too many keywords and irrelevant links
can cause your web page to significantly drop in search
relevance and ranking.
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Adding Metadata to your page |
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Title, Description and Keyword tags are placed
in the header of a web page's source code between the <head>
and </head> tags. Pay special attention to syntax, even one
extra space or one missing character can render the tag non-functional.
Title: Selecting the right title is crucial
to defining a web page and ensuring that it can be effectively
used within
the World Wide Web. Many HTML editors automatically assign
title tags to web pages.
<title>The University of Utah</title>
Description and Keyword tags
are contained in another type of tag, called the <meta> tag.
The <meta> tag can contain a variety of different HTML
name attributes. Pay close attention to syntax, including "quotation"
marks.
<meta name="description" content="Founded
on February 28, 1850, The University of Utah offers 75 undergraduate degree programs,
more than 50 teaching majors and minors, and 96 graduate majors. University of
Utah is classified by the Carnegie Foundation as one of 50 comprehensive Research
I universities from among 3,700 U.S. institutions. Its various schools and colleges
are accredited by their own discipline's agencies.">
<meta name="keywords" content="University
of Utah, UU, Utes, Utah, Salt Lake City, university, universities,
colleges, higher education, academic, research, admissions,
graduate programs, undergraduate programs, faculty, students,
hospitals, health sciences, alumni, visitors, 2002 Olympic
Winter Games, Paralympic Games, Olympic Stadium, Olympic
Village">
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Tools and Resources |
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For information on optimizing your website
for the UofU search engine, and to learn about other search
engine
features such as link checking and frequent search queries,
see: http://www.utah.edu/uwebresources/search_engine/index.html
Most search engines include instructions for submitting
a URL and many include information on optimizing content.
Some search engine companies offer premium services which
cost money, but can expedite getting a URL indexed, and
allow a web page to be displayed in special featured
areas.
Search Engine
Watch provides information and links about search
engines. More detailed information is available to premium
members for a fee.
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