META Tags
More than a year ago, we discussed the desirability of placing META tags in pages to increase their retrievability through search engines.
For more on META tags, see: http://www.searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/meta.html and this searchengine features chart that tells us (among other things) that of AltaVista, Excite, FAST Search, Go (Infoseek), Google, Lycos and Northern Light:
- These DO NOT index META description tags: FAST, Google, Lycos, NLight
- These DO NOT index META keyword tags: Excite, FAST, Google, Lycos, NLight
- These DO NOT let META tags boost rankings: AltaVista, Excite, FAST, Google, Lycos, NLight
Basically, the idea is that we would do something like this, adding META description and/or META keyword tags to each page (or at least the home page of each section):
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META name="description" content="Lawrence University is the coolest place ever">
<META name="keywords" content="higher education, liberal arts, best colleges, conservatory of music">
<!-- Replace TITLE GOES HERE with your own terms ----------------- -->
<TITLE>Lawrence University : About Lawrence : TITLE GOES HERE</TITLE>
<!-- Please leave these includes intact -------------------------- -->
<!--#include virtual="/scripts/setupswaps.jsi"-->
<!--#include virtual="/scripts/loadupperblockgifs.jsi"-->
<!--#include virtual="/scripts/loadlowerblockgifs.jsi"-->
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/lubody.css">
</HEAD>
The proposed list of META keywords (as prepared by Blodgett, Brown, and Wahl):
- Higher Education (/www.lawrence.edu/)
- Colleges and Universities (www.lawrence.edu/admissions/)
- Liberal Arts Colleges (www.lawrence.edu/about/)
- Best Colleges (www.lawrence.edu/about/fastfacts.htmlx)
- Liberal Arts (/www.lawrence.edu/academics/)
- Wisconsin Colleges (www.lawrence.edu/admissions/general/)
- College Admissions (/www.lawrence.edu/admissions/)
- Scholarships (www.lawrence.edu/admissions/finaid/scholarship.html)
- Financial Aid (/www.lawrence.edu/admissions/finaid/)
- Athletics (/www.lawrence.edu/dept/athletics/)
- Division III Athletics (/www.lawrence.edu/dept/athletics/varsity.htmlx)
- Intercollegiate Sports (/www.lawrence.edu/dept/athletics/)
- Conservatory of Music ((/www.lawrence.edu/academics/con/)
- Music School (/www.lawrence.edu/admissions/acaddepts/music.htmlx)
- Performing Arts (/www.lawrence.edu/news/perform.htmlx)
- Jazz (/www.lawrence.edu/ref/conref/muth.html)
- Music Education (/www.lawrence.edu/academics/music/)
- Visual Arts (/www.lawrence.edu/admissions/acaddepts/art.htmlx)
- Study Abroad (/www.lawrence.edu/academics/offcampus/)
- Science Education (/www.lawrence.edu/admissions/acaddepts/areas.htmlx)
- Media Relations (/www.lawrence.edu/media/)
- Travel destinations (/www.lawrence.edu/about/bjork/)
- Adult education (/www.lawrence.edu/about/bjork/seminars/)
