labelling things correctly: URLs, alt tags, title tags and meta data
URLs, alt tags, title tags and meta data all describe a web site and its pages to both search engine spiders and people. (And don’t worry; these words are all described to you below!) Chances are, clear descriptive use of these elements will appeal to both.
URLs
URLs should be as brief and descriptive as possible. This may mean that URLs require server side rewriting so as to cope with dynamic parameters in URLs. Does that sound a little heavy? The examples below should make this clearer:
Comparison of URLs for Cube World, a toy for sale on both sites:
Firebox.com - www.firebox.com/index.html?dir=firebox&action=product&pid=1201 Gizoo.co.uk - www.gizoo.co.uk/Products/toysgames/Interactive/CubeWorld2.htm The first example has dynamic parameters – these are shown by the question mark and the ampersand – and use categories that make sense to the database (e.g. pid=1201), but they make little sense to the user.
The second example is far more user friendly, and clearly indicates where in the site the user is. You even start getting a good idea of the architecture of the web site from just one URL!
More than two dynamic parameters in a URL increase the risk that the URL may not be spidered. The search engine would not even index the content on that page.
Lastly, well written URLs can make great anchor text. If another site is linking to yours and they use just the URL, the search engine will do a better job of knowing what the page is about if you have a descriptive URL.
Alt tags
Have you ever waited for a page to load, and seen little boxes of writing where the images should be? Sometimes they say things like “topimg.jpg”, and sometimes they are much clearer and you have “Cocktails at sunset at Camps Bay”.
Since search engines read text, not images, descriptive tags are the only way to tell them what the images are, but these are still essentially for users. Text readers for browsers will also read out these tags to tell the user what is there. Meaningful descriptions certainly sound a lot better than “image1”, “image2”, “image3”.
URLs, alt tags, title tags and meta data all describe a web site and its pages to both search engine spiders and people. (And don’t worry; these words are all described to you below!) Chances are, clear descriptive use of these elements will appeal to both.
URLs
URLs should be as brief and descriptive as possible. This may mean that URLs require server side rewriting so as to cope with dynamic parameters in URLs. Does that sound a little heavy? The examples below should make this clearer:
Comparison of URLs for Cube World, a toy for sale on both sites:
Firebox.com - www.firebox.com/index.html?dir=firebox&action=product&pid=1201 Gizoo.co.uk - www.gizoo.co.uk/Products/toysgames/Interactive/CubeWorld2.htm The first example has dynamic parameters – these are shown by the question mark and the ampersand – and use categories that make sense to the database (e.g. pid=1201), but they make little sense to the user.
The second example is far more user friendly, and clearly indicates where in the site the user is. You even start getting a good idea of the architecture of the web site from just one URL!
More than two dynamic parameters in a URL increase the risk that the URL may not be spidered. The search engine would not even index the content on that page.
Lastly, well written URLs can make great anchor text. If another site is linking to yours and they use just the URL, the search engine will do a better job of knowing what the page is about if you have a descriptive URL.
Alt tags
Have you ever waited for a page to load, and seen little boxes of writing where the images should be? Sometimes they say things like “topimg.jpg”, and sometimes they are much clearer and you have “Cocktails at sunset at Camps Bay”.
Since search engines read text, not images, descriptive tags are the only way to tell them what the images are, but these are still essentially for users. Text readers for browsers will also read out these tags to tell the user what is there. Meaningful descriptions certainly sound a lot better than “image1”, “image2”, “image3”.
Title attribute
Just as you can have the alt tag on an image HTML element, you can have a title attribute on almost any HTML element - most commonly on a link. This is the text that is seen when a user hovers over the element with their mouse pointer. It used to describe the element, or what the link is about. As this is text, it will also be read by search engine spiders.
Title tags
Title tags, what appears on the top bar of your browser, are used by search engines to determine the content of that page. They are also often used by search engines as the link text on the search engines results page, so targeted title tags help to drive clickthrough rates. Title tags should be clear and concise (it’s a general rule of thumb that all tags be clear and concise, you’ll find). Title tags are also used when bookmarking a web page.
Just as you can have the alt tag on an image HTML element, you can have a title attribute on almost any HTML element - most commonly on a link. This is the text that is seen when a user hovers over the element with their mouse pointer. It used to describe the element, or what the link is about. As this is text, it will also be read by search engine spiders.
Title tags
Title tags, what appears on the top bar of your browser, are used by search engines to determine the content of that page. They are also often used by search engines as the link text on the search engines results page, so targeted title tags help to drive clickthrough rates. Title tags should be clear and concise (it’s a general rule of thumb that all tags be clear and concise, you’ll find). Title tags are also used when bookmarking a web page.
Meta tags
Meta tags are where the developer can fill in information about a web page. These tags are not normally seen by users. If you right click on a page in a browser and select “view source”, you should see a list of entries for <meta name=
Meta tags are where the developer can fill in information about a web page. These tags are not normally seen by users. If you right click on a page in a browser and select “view source”, you should see a list of entries for <meta name=
These are the meta data. In the past, the meta tags were used extensively by search engine spiders, but since so many people used this to try to manipulate search results, they are now less important. Meta data now act to provide context and relevancy rather than higher rankings. However, the meta tag called “description” often appears on the search engine results page (SERP) as the snippet of text to describe the web page being linked to. This is illustrated in the image above. If the description is accurate, well-written and relevant to the searcher’s query, these descriptions are more likely to be used by the search engine. And if it meets all those criteria, it also means the link is more likely to be clicked on by the searcher.
