What is Meta Tags?
Meta tags are one piece in a large algorithmic puzzle that major search engines look at when deciding which results are relevant to show users who have typed in a search query
Metadata is data (information) about data.
The tag provides metadata about the HTML document. Metadata will not be displayed on the page, but will be machine parsable.
Meta elements are typically used to specify page description, keywords, author of the document, last modified, and other metadata.
The metadata can be used by browsers (how to display content or reload page), search engines (keywords), or other web services.
Why use Meta Tags?
The most common reason to use meta tags is to provide a description of the page for search engines. This is done with the <meta name="description"> tag. The description tag provides a short (typically 400 characters or less) description of the page that search engines use below the linked title.
Example for Meta in HTML
<head>
<meta name="description" content="This is an example of a meta description. This will often show up in search results.">
</head>
Meta tags are a lot of things, but basicaly they contain information about the Web page that will not be directly displayed to the person reading the page.
The most common types of meta tags are keywords and Description:
Keywords
Keywords are used by search engines to make the page more easily searchable. You would put words that are used on the page that best describe the page.
<meta name="keywords" content="antivirus Norton AntiVirus Enterprise edition nav AV">
Description
The description is used by search engines to provide a short synopsis of the page. You would put a sentence or two that describes what the page is about.
<meta name="description" content="Norton AntiVirus Enterprise Edition is the most comprehensive antivirus solution available for businesses">
Some Meta Tags for Site Management
1)Author
2)Copyright
3)Contact
4)Last-modified
1)Author
Who wrote this Web page? You can include a list of authors if multiple people wrote the content and it typically refers to the content authors rather than the designers of the HTML or CSS.
<meta name="author" content="author name" />
2)Copyright
Set the copyright date on the document. Note, you shouldn't use this instead of a copyright notice that is visible on the Web page, but it's a good place to store the copyright in the code as well.
<meta name="copyright" content="© 2013 Queryhome.com" />
3)Contact
This is a contact email address for the author of the page (generally). Be aware that if you put an email address in this tag, it can be read by spammers, so be sure to protect your email address.
<meta name="contact" content="email address" />
4)last-modified
When was this document last edited?
<meta http-equiv="last-modified" content="YYYY-MM-DD@hh:mm:ss TMZ" />
Video Tutorial for How to Create a Meta Tags for SEO
