Meta Tags

Meta Tags are used to provide additional information about a web page. The information stored in the tag isn’t visible on the web page but it can affect the way the web browser works. For example when ICRA Meta Tags are included it can affect the parental controls settings.

Meta Tags are optional. However it is considered best practice to include certain tags and providing more information with tags can open up the functionality of the web site. You can see the tags by viewing the source code. In the Firefox web browser you can go to the “Tools Menu” and choose “Page Info”.

Meta Tags are used to inform search engines about the keywords used on the page, provide a summary of the page contents, the content language (which assists with language translation), convey a location with Geo Positioning, technical formats and pointers to other files such as News Feeds and Favicons.

Technical Formatting Meta Tags

  • <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8">
  • <meta http-equiv="content-language" content="en">
  • <meta http-equiv="content-language" content="en-gb">

Search Engine Meta Tags

  • <meta name="keywords" content="meta tags, icra, favicons, apple touch icon, x-ua-compatible"> <!--no longer used by Google-->
  • <meta name="description" content="Meta Tags can inform search engines about the most relevant keywords used on the page, provide a short summary of the page contents and describe the formatting of the page such as the language it has been written in.">

Favicon Meta Tags (use top two)

  • <link rel="icon" href="http://www.example.com/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">
  • <link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.example.com/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">
  • <link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.example.com/favicon.ico" type="image/vnd.microsoft.icon"><!--The 2010 IANA standard but not supported in IE-->

Apple Touch Icon for iPad and iPhone Meta Tag

  • <link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="http://www.example.com/apple-touch-icon.png">
  • <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" href="http://www.example.com/apple-touch-icon.png"><!--prevents rendering-->

Apple Safari iPad and iPhone Meta Tags

  • <meta name="viewport" content="width = device-width">
  • <meta name="viewport" content="initial-scale = 1.0">
  • <meta name="viewport" content="width = 320, initial-scale = 2.3, user-scalable = no"><!--width is pixels, range 200 to 10000-->
  • <meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no"> <!--disables automatic detection of possible phone numbers-->
  • <meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes"><!--specifies full-screen mode-->
  • <meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-status-bar-style" content="black"><!--specify full-screen mode first-->

Search Engine Robots Meta Tags

  • <meta name="revisit-after" content="10 days">
  • <meta name="googlebot" content="noodp">
  • <meta name="msnbot" content="noodp">
  • <meta name="slurp" content="noodp, noydir"> <!--yahoo-->
  • <meta name="teoma" content="noodp"> <!--ask-->
  • <meta name="robots" content="noodp, noydir">
  • <meta name="robots" content="index, follow">
  • <meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow">
  • <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
  • <meta name="robots" content="noarchive"> <!--don't cache-->
  • <meta name="robots" content="nosnippet"> <!--google doesn't show snippet-->
  • <meta name="robots" content="index, follow, noodp, noydir, noarchive">

Browser Compatibility Meta Tags for Internet Explorer v8+

  • <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=7"> <!--render Internet Explorer v7 standards mode regardless of doctype-->
  • <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=emulateie7"> <!--render according to doctype, standards is v7 and quirks is v5-->
  • <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=8"> <!--render Internet Explorer v8 standards mode regardless of doctype-->
  • <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=emulateie8"> <!--render according to doctype, standards is v8 and quirks is v5-->
  • <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge"> <!--render using latest version of Internet Explorer-->
  • <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=5"> <!--render using Internet Explorer v7 quirks mode, which is like v5-->
  • <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=5; ie=8"> <!--render using v8 if available, otherwise use v5 instead of v6 or v7-->
  • <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="chrome=1"> <!--render using Chrome if available-->
  • <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=emulateie7; chrome=1"> <!--render Chrome if available or Internet Explorer v7-->

Pinterest Meta Tags

  • <meta name="pinterest" content="nopin"> <!--prevents sharing of content by Pinterest users-->
  • <meta property="og:title" content="Meta Tags"> <!--required for product pin-->
  • <meta property="og:price:amount" content="15.00"> <!--required for product pin--> <!--include decimal places-->
  • <meta property="og:price:currency" content="GBP"> <!--required for product pin-->

Open Graph Protocol OG Meta Tags (Facebook Opengraph Meta Tags)

  • <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML+RDFa 1.0//EN" "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-rdfa-1.dtd">
  • <meta property="og:image" content="http://www.example.com/image.jpg"> <!--used for Facebook Share thumbnail-->
  • <meta property="og:image" content="http://www.example.com/image2.jpg"> <!--multiple og:image permitted-->
  • <meta property="og:title" content="Meta Tags">
  • <meta property="og:description" content="Meta Tags can inform search engines about the content of a web page">
  • <meta property="og:site_name" content="Quotes">
  • <meta property="og:url" content="http://www.example.com/web/page.htm">
  • <meta property="og:type" content="product"> <!--product, blog, website, book, movie, game, actor, see http://ogp.me/#types-->
  • <meta property="og:price:amount" content="15.00"> <!--include decimal places-->
  • <meta property="og:price:currency" content="GBP">
  • <meta property="og:availability" content="instock"> <!--instock/in stock/preorder/backorder/out of stock/discontinued-->
  • <meta property="og:brand" content="Acme"> <!--more tags at https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/opengraph/object-type/product/-->
  • <meta property="og:latitude" content="50.97590">
  • <meta property="og:longitude" content="0.01722">
  • <meta property="og:street-address" content="3 Cricketfield">
  • <meta property="og:locality" content="Newick">
  • <meta property="og:region" content="East Sussex">
  • <meta property="og:postal-code" content="BN8 4LL">
  • <meta property="og:country-name" content="UK">
  • <meta property="og:email" content="email@example.com">
  • <meta property="og:phone_number" content="555 123 4567">
  • <meta property="og:fax_number" content="+44 555 123 4567">
  • <meta property="og:video" content="http://www.example.com/video.flv">
  • <meta property="og:video:height" content="640">
  • <meta property="og:video:width" content="385">
  • <meta property="og:video:type" content="application/x-shockwave-flash">
  • <meta property="og:audio" content="http://www.example.com/audio.mp3">
  • <meta property="og:audio:title" content="Song Title">
  • <meta property="og:audio:artist" content="Name of Band">
  • <meta property="og:audio:album" content="Album Title">
  • <meta property="og:audio:type" content="application/mp3">
  • <meta property="og:upc" content="885909367481"> <!--UPC EAN barcodes-->
  • <meta property="og:isbn" content="1873520786"> <!--book ISBN number-->

News Feed Meta Tags

  • <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Example (Feedburner)" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/example">
  • <link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Example (Atom 0.3)" href="http://www.example.com/atom.xml">
  • <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Example (RSS 2.0)" href="http://www.example.com/rss.xml">

Authoring Meta Tags

  • <meta name="author" content="Quotes">
  • <meta name="publisher" content="www.quotes.uk.com">
  • <meta name="copyright" content="www.quotes.uk.com">
  • <meta name="host" content="www.quotes.uk.com">
  • <meta name="generator" content="Adobe Dreamweaver">

Geo Positioning Meta Tags

  • <meta name="geo.position" content="50.97590;0.01722">
  • <meta name="geo.region" content="GB">
  • <meta name="geo.placename" content="Newick, East Sussex, United Kingdom">
  • <meta name="ICBM" content="50.9759, 0.0172">
  • <meta name="DC.title" content="Quotes - Web Design and Web Hosting">