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Chad1971
10-02-2005, 13:00/01:00PM
Hey guys, would anyone mind taking a look at my title, keywords, and description tags? Particularly for placement and if there are any mistakes.
I, personally, see them there and they look correctly placed but when I use various HTML analyzer tools that are out there on the web, they say that I have NO keywords or description.
I feel that this could be affecting my SE placement atleast to an extent.
I certainly do appreciate your time.
Chad
www.housesincharlotte.com
Blue
10-02-2005, 14:57/02:57PM
Hi Chad,

First, you need a doctype tag similar to the following, to be placed above your <html> tag:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

Next, for your description and keywords tags you have them coded wrong. They should be like this:

<meta name="description" content="description here">
<meta name="keywords" content="keyword,keyword">

Hope that helps.
Chad1971
10-02-2005, 17:25/05:25PM
Thank you Blue, I've already changed the keyword and description tag to the way you suggested.

As far as the doctype tag, should I use EXACTLY what you typed which was?:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">

OR (upon a little web surfing and finding this) should I use:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

They are the same exept for the last bit of it but I'm not sure if it matters either way. Me, well I just see a bunch of letters and symbols as it is very Greek to me.

Please excuse my ignorance but with Front Page 2002 generating the HTML code automatically, I've never learned anything about coding.

Thanks again,
Chad
Connie
10-02-2005, 17:56/05:56PM
Chad,

The second example is correct. The first leaves a browser in what is called "Quirks Mode" However since you are using FP you might be better off with the first example because FP does not alway create clean code. As far a validating either doc type will validate if the page itself will validate.

Do you check you pages in different browsers? You might be surprised if you don't. I learned that the hard way a few years ago when I used FP. Caused me to start learning a little about html. :D
Chad1971
10-02-2005, 18:40/06:40PM
Thanks alot Connie. I put the more simplified example from Blue in.

As far as checking my pages in other browsers, I guess you mean so that I can see how it appears in those browsers? Well, no, I've never really thought of it but since reading your email, I have been surfing trying to find some good tools.
Do you know of any in particular that are really good at analyzing browser compatibility as well as offering solutions to fix the code?I've come across a few but none that were really insightful.

Thanks again for your help.
Chad
Connie
10-02-2005, 19:38/07:38PM
I use several browsers. Netscape 4.7, sometimes IE 5.5 , Opera, Netscape 7 FireFox 1.0 and IE 6. Most of the time If it looks OK in FireFox it will in the other browsers to. I have come across some exceptions but that is usually do to using CSS and has nothing to do with html.

If the html is standards compliant then the page should render pretty much the same in all browsers.

I don't know of any tools that will accurately show you the way a page looks in various browsers. There are a couple but I've never trusted them.

The way I stared out was reading some on line tutorials on html. Then I discovered the
W3C Validation Tool (http://validator.w3.org/) Man was that a frustrating experience trying to validate 350 or so webpages that had all been produced in FP. Though it was frustrating it was well worth the time spent.

Like a lot of things I went about it the wrong way. It would have been a lot faster after getting one page validated to create a templet from that page, that I could copy and paste information from existing pages into the templet and save as the existing page.

Your code may be in a lot better shape than mine was and it could be a lot easier for you if you decide to start getting your pages standard compliant.

[edit] for spelling
g1smd
13-02-2005, 13:49/01:49PM
The good news with validation errors is that there are a dozen mistakes that people make all the time, and another dozen that occur quite frequently. Once you have learnt how to fix those specific problems then you can fix 99% of all the errors that you'll ever encounter.

Fixing the errors can be simple, if you have the right tools. A simple find and replace operation is often all that is required. If you have an editor that can change all your pages simultaneously then it can be quite a quick job to fix even a fairly large site.

Design using, and check your pages in, amodern browser like Mozilla, validate the code too, then make sure the site works OK in IE. Trying to design in IE then checking in Mozilla afterwards will make the job far longer.
Blue
14-02-2005, 13:46/01:46PM
And please take Connie's advice about the DOCTYPE tag (I've edited my post above to reflect the correct usage).

Valid Doctype's (http://www.w3.org/QA/2002/04/valid-dtd-list.html)