If you’ve ever used a search engine like Google or Yahoo to search for something, then you have at least seen the term “meta tags”. This term probably has not kept you from a pile of search results for either “SEO” or “internet marketing“. You might be wondering what “meta tags” are and how they can benefit your SEO campaigns. Well, here’s the long and short of it.

First of all, meta tags are simply snippets of HTML code that describes the content of a webpage; however, the meta tags usually do not appear directly on the webpage itself, but only within the page’s source code. This means that you can’t see them, but if you read the source code, you will be able to see them. Meta tags are basically little snippets of information that help describe a web site to search engines. Robots, spiders, and other web bots look for these tags to determine what the page is about, and sometimes, these tags also help identify the layout of the page as well. If a search engine cannot recognize a particular meta tag, then the robot will return a “no-result-found” error.

Some examples of meta tags that can give you a boost to your SEO efforts include the language attribute, page title tag, alternate image name, and Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) name. The language attribute lets the search engine know which language your page is written in. This will help your robots crawl the pages quicker and more thoroughly, especially if the languages used in the site are diverse. In addition, the title tag gives the search engine the name of the webpage, allowing the robots to find more pages in a search result.

Keywords are very important meta tags to optimize SEO. One thing you want to remember when optimizing keywords is to be honest with yourself about what keywords you’re using. If you see yourself using many keywords, or you’re not sure which keywords are relevant, then you may want to tone down the number of keywords. Also, keep in mind that keywords change over time. If your meta tags have keywords that have been outdated for months, it’s best to move them to the appropriate meta tag section. It’s best to be honest about keywords, even if you have to sacrifice some SEO.

Google offers two methods for refreshing meta tags. You can either go into your Google Webmaster Tools account and then check for a refresh, or you can go into your Google Webmaster Tools section, and then click on the “Refresh” button. Each method will cause a refresh to take place on the associated index page. Google recommends using the “Refresh” option because it can take up to 10 seconds to go through all the available changes. If you need a temporary refresh, Google suggests going into your webmaster tools and checking the “Temporary” box, but this takes up to ten seconds.

Meta Description is one of the most important parts of your meta tags. It’s not visible to search engines. It appears at the very bottom of your web site’s URL, with an equal sign next to it. It describes the content of your page, and search engines use this information to determine where to rank your site.