Meta tags 114
Redirects
Meta refresh elements can be used to instruct a Web browser to automatically refresh a Web page after a given time
interval. It is also possible to specify an alternative URL and use this technique in order to redirect the user to a
different location. Auto refreshing via a META element has been deprecated for more than ten years,[18] and
recognized as problematic before that.[19]
The W3C suggests that user agents should allow users to disable it, otherwise META refresh should not be used by
web pages. For Internet Explorer's security settings, under the miscellaneous category, meta refresh can be turned off
by the user, thereby disabling its redirect ability. In Mozilla Firefox it can be disabled in the configuration file under
the key name "accessibility.blockautorefresh".[20]
Many web design tutorials also point out that client-side redirecting tends to interfere with the normal functioning of
a Web browser's "back" button. After being redirected, clicking the back button will cause the user to go back to the
redirect page, which redirects them again. Some modern browsers seem to overcome this problem however,
including Safari, Mozilla Firefox and Opera.
Auto-redirects via markup (versus server-side redirects) are not in compliance with the W3C's - Web Content
Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 (guideline 7.5).[21]HTTP message headers
Meta elements of the form <meta http-equiv="foo" content="bar"> can be used as alternatives to
http headers. For example, <meta http-equiv="expires" content="Wed, 21 June 2006
14:25:27 GMT"> would tell the browser that the page "expires" on June 21, 2006 at 14:25:27 GMT and that it
may safely cache the page until then.Alternative to meta elements
An alternative to meta elements for enhanced subject access within a website is the use of a back-of-book-style
index for the website. See the American Society of Indexers [22] website for an example.
In 1994, ALIWEB, also used an index file to provide the type of information commonly found in meta keywords
attributes.References
[ 1 ]Statistic (June 4, 1997), META attributes by count (http:/ / vancouver-webpages. com/ META/ bycount. shtml), Vancouver Webpages,
retrieved June 3, 2007
[ 2 ]Danny Sullivan (October 1, 2002), Death Of A Meta Tag (http:/ / searchenginewatch. com/ showPage. html?page=2165061),
SearchEngineWatch.com, retrieved June 03, 2007
[[ 33 ]][http://sangers.nu/blog/tech/20080909-the-meta-tag-attribute--keywords "In 2007, 37 leaders in search engine optimisation concluded that
having keywords in the keywords attribute is little to none." Sanger.nu blog, September 9 2008, retrieved August 2 2011
[ 4 ]"Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking" (http:/ / googlewebmastercentral. blogspot. com/ 2009/ 09/
google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag. html) Google Webmaster Central Blog, September 21 2009, retrieved September 21 2009
[ 5 ]Yahoo! FAQs, How do I improve the ranking of my web site in the search results? (http:/ / web. archive. org/ web/ 20071015182848/ http:/ /
help. yahoo. com/ l/ us/ yahoo/ search/ ranking/ ranking-02. html), Yahoo.com, retrieved November 12, 2008
[ 6 ]"Yahoo Drops The Meta Keywords Tag Also" (http:/ / http://www. seroundtable. com/ archives/ 020918. html) SEO Roundtable, October 8 2009,
retrieved April 22 2011
[ 7 ]"Yahoo's Senior Director of Search Got It Wrong, Yahoo Uses Meta Keywords Still" (http:/ / http://www. seroundtable. com/ archives/ 020964.
html) SEO Roundtable, October 16 2009, retrieved April 22 2011
[ 8 ]Danny Sullivan, How To Use HTML Meta Tags (http:/ / searchenginewatch. com/ showPage. html?page=2167931), Search Engine Watch,
December 5, 2002
[ 9 ]1 Website Designer Using language metatags in websites (http:/ / http://www. 1websitedesigner. com/ language-metatags) February 19, 2008
[ 10 ]Vanessa Fox, Using the robots meta tag (http:/ / googlewebmastercentral. blogspot. com/ 2007/ 03/ using-robots-meta-tag. html), Official
Google Webmaster Central Blog, 3/05/2007