Reckon this set up is acceptable? [Archive] - SEO Best Practices Search Engine Forums

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Rockrz

26-08-2002, 22:58/10:58PM

Just curious as to how many mistakes you guys think I have in this set-up . . .

Any ideas on how to improve on it is greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

________________________________

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 5.50.4611.1300" name=GENERATOR>
<HTML><HEAD>
<TITLE>CASHLESS ATM SCRIP Machines - The Future of Credit Card Processing - Replacing Merchant Accounts with ATM Credit Card Machines</TITLE>
<META NAME="Description" CONTENT=" description goes in here ">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="keywords" CONTENT=" keywords go in here ">
<META NAME="Resource-Type" CONTENT="document">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="author" CONTENT="Protec Financial Services">
<META NAME="generator" CONTENT="Professional Media Services">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="distribution" CONTENT="Global">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="expires" CONTENT="0">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma" CONTENT="no-cache">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Cache-Control" CONTENT="no-cache">

Advisor

26-08-2002, 23:02/11:02PM

I don't really understand what you're asking.

Sorry!

Jill

ihelpyou

26-08-2002, 23:05/11:05PM

This seems like a broken record for forums:

You only need:

title
description
keywords
robots

Those are the only tags you need. All else is very useless and takes up space and bytes.

Rockrz

26-08-2002, 23:14/11:14PM

What are robot tags?
I can assume they're something to do with what search engine robots will be looking for on a webpage.

And I've read in several places that the following is needed so engines will recognize a page as being standards compliant:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">

ihelpyou

26-08-2002, 23:18/11:18PM

Yes. The robots tag should be put in. Do a search in here for 'robots tag'.

<meta name="ROBOTS" content="INDEX,FOLLOW">

That's if you want the spiders to crawl and index your page and also follow all links to other pages.

No, those tags are not necessary for the search engines. You can leave them in if you wish.

Advisor

26-08-2002, 23:19/11:19PM

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> Those are good to have to follow the appropriate W3C protocol.

They have nothing to do with search engines, however. But they won't hurt you, I would definitely use them.

Jill

Advisor

26-08-2002, 23:21/11:21PM

ihelpyou

26-08-2002, 23:25/11:25PM

Yes. Some will follow that tag and some will not. Also, the some that do follow it sometimes don't follow it. lol Yep, you should always use a robots.txt file.

Rockrz

27-08-2002, 01:21/01:21AM

So, <meta name="ROBOTS" content="INDEX,FOLLOW"> is robot.txt?

Advisor

27-08-2002, 07:58/07:58AM

Originally posted by Rockrz
So, <meta name="ROBOTS" content="INDEX,FOLLOW"> is robot.txt? No. Go to www.robotstxt.org for info on robots.txt.

Jill

Matt B

27-08-2002, 08:31/08:31AM

Does your title make it completely on the page?

<TITLE>CASHLESS ATM SCRIP Machines - The Future of Credit Card Processing - Replacing Merchant Accounts with ATM Credit Card Machines</TITLE>
I know you are trying to get all your keywords in the title, but I don't think it will all fit in the title bar. It seems a bit tooooooo long.

ihelpyou

27-08-2002, 08:39/08:39AM

Yes, and all those stop words are deluting any preference for your keyword phrases in that title as well. Take them out.

Your title looks like a description tag. It should look like a title tag.

Rockrz

27-08-2002, 13:02/01:02PM

Thanks, Jill for the link.....

Do you think the letters inside these meta tags need to be capitalized? Or, does it not matter?

I keep seeing them capitalized in tutorials and was wondering....

Advisor

27-08-2002, 13:07/01:07PM

Capitalization is irrelevant. Even more irrelevant than Meta Keywords.

J

Rockrz

27-08-2002, 13:20/01:20PM

I guess all my meta tags (like the ones I have at the very top) should be put inside the <head> tags, right?

I'll go back and adjust my page title to where it's shorter, to the point, but include keywords. Thanks for noticing....

g1smd

10-11-2002, 09:01/09:01AM

These three sites seem to give useful general information on meta data:

http://198.103.99.147/publications/userman_e.html

http://www.nla.gov.au/nla/staffpaper/cathro3.html

http://www.coara.or.jp/~fac/wwwh2huf.htm

Rockrz

10-11-2002, 11:04/11:04AM

I thought meta tags no longer had very much wieght at all, and that search engines are now using keyword rich content found in the webpage itself, and in the page's title tag.

Is this still holding to be true?

Advisor

10-11-2002, 11:07/11:07AM

Rock, that's ALWAYS been true since the beginning of Search Engines. And yes, it's still true today.

Rockrz

10-11-2002, 16:43/04:43PM

Thanks....I learned that from you, so I knew it had to be right.

I still use meta tags, but I'm not counting on them to give me anything keyword rich content found in the webpage itself will give me.

g1smd

10-11-2002, 18:48/06:48PM

The links I provided above, if you follow them, show that Meta tags are used for more things than just search engine results.

Rockrz

11-11-2002, 18:08/06:08PM

I found that out after reading them.

I just wouldn't want to jeapordize my search engine results with extra stuff, since ranking is my #1 top priority.

Gots to have some decent ranking!

Rockrz

12-12-2002, 10:49/10:49AM

Just wanted to double check on something . . .

When running straight HTML (i haven't moved up to XML yet) shouldn't the very top line be:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.1 Transitional//EN">

instead of:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">

I had heard at some point that HTML 4.0 is now supposed to be 4.1, or 4.01

Just wanted to know what is recommended

cohwill

12-12-2002, 16:37/04:37PM

Don't use the "HTTP-EQUIV" part of the meta tags. They are not useful.

IMHO, robot tags are only useful when you DON'T want something indexed.

Also, the title field should only be 60 characters long.

Rockrz

12-12-2002, 16:49/04:49PM

Thanks, but specifically my question was only concerning the very first line....

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.1 Transitional//EN">

Does anyone know if it should be "4.1", or "4.01"???

I had heard somewhere that it should be "4.01", but I wanted to verify this with the resident experts onboard here!

g1smd

12-12-2002, 20:32/08:32PM

See http://validator.w3.org/ -- you'll be needing 4.01 there.

Rockrz

12-12-2002, 21:36/09:36PM

Thanks!