Google's Meta tag : "unavailable_after"

Google introduces the "unavailable_after" Meta Tag

During the 3rd SEMNE (Search Engine Marketing England), Director of crawl systems from Google Dan Crow introduced the new Meta tag called “unavailable_after” which will allow webmasters to instruct Googlebot when a specific webpage will no longer be available for indexing. For example, if you have a special offer on your website that will expire on a specific period or some pages are available free for a week, you can use the “unavailable_after” tag to let Googlebot knows when to stop indexing.

For instance, to identify that an HTML webpage should be removed from the Google search results after 6pm Eastern Standard Time (EST) on 5th November 2007, simply add the following Meta tag to the first section of the page.


This tag will be treated by Google as an exclusion request and will take effect the day after the exclusion period passes. It is helpful if you have a temporary web page that will be removed at the specific date.

For more information on SEMNE, please visit SEMNE.ORG

Introduction to Search Engine Optimization

What is Search Engine Optimization - SEO?

Search Engine Optimization is defined as the process of increasing the quantity and quality of traffics to a website. This is done by ranking high in the search engine result pages once a relevant keyword or key terms is entered.

It is also the term used to describe the marketing strategy of preparing a website. As a marketing strategy for increasing a website’s relevance, ranking and search engine visibility, SEO considers how search engine algorithms work and what users search for.

It is said that the higher a website ranks in the search engine result pages, the better the chances that a website will be visited, an undeniable truth.

There are two factors in optimizing a website, On-page and Off-page optimization.

On page optimization is directly related to the content and the architectural link structure and overall functionalities of a website. This usually consists of pages written in the HTML and also applies to the other document formats that are indexed by search engines. The On page optimization includes modifying and enhancing of the following elements:

• META Tags (Title, Description & Keyword)
• ALT tags
• Hyperlink Text
• Keyword use in the document
• Accessibility of document
• Links to document from site – internal pages (Internal Navigation)
• Primary subject matter of site
• Copywriting

Off page optimization is a search engine strategy that is done off the website pages to maximize its performance and visibility in the search engines for the targeted relevant keywords through the page content. It includes link building by placing keywords within the anchor text that points to the URL of the web page. These are the method of acquiring links that considered as an off-page optimization:

• Press Release
• Article submissions
• Social Media Sites
• Advertising
• Link building campaigns
• Directory submissions
• Blog and Forum posting

The most important of these criteria are the quantity and quality of inbound links using anchor text containing the targeted keywords, and these should come from the pages covering relevant topics, if possible from large and long established authority websites.

The Meta Tags Guidelines

Search Engine Optimization: The META Tags

Meta tags are important tools for unbeaten search engine marketing. The Meta tags are HTML tags that facilitate and explain the document they are located in. Search Engines focus on the three primary tags – Title, Description and the Keyword tags to help them (Search Engine crawlers, spiders, bots) verify the relevance of a website for a particular phrase.

The Title tag describes exactly what the document contains, and is one of the most important tags for a search engine. It is the first one to appear in the search engine results, and it should contain keywords (no repetitions) of terms that you would like to be found, with a maximum number of 80 characters including spaces.

Example:


The Title tags of the web pages can frequently generate rapid and substantial differences to its ranking and because the words in the title tags are what appear in the clickable link on the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). Strategicaly altering them may result in more clickthroughs.

The Meta Description tag has a maximum number of 250 characters that describes the content of a website. This description is not displayed on the page itself, but is largely intended to help the search engines index the page correctly.

Example:


The Meta description tag is a snippet of HTML code that belongs within the Head segment of a Web page and it is usually placed after the Title tag and before the Keywords tag, although the arrangement is unnecessary.

The Meta Keyword tag is used to help define the primary keywords of a web page that contains important keywords and phrases consistent with the HTML body text and page title and has a maximum number of 250 characters including spaces.

Let’s summarize what needs to be done before to create Meta Keyword tags:

• Select relevant keywords
• Write the web site’s content based on these keywords
• Create a Title tag with some of these keywords
• Write a Meta description simple and authoritative using some of the selected keywords.

If possible, these things should be done before optimizing the web site.

Example:


These tags (Title, Description and Keywords) are the most important considerations of search engines to determine relevancy in indexing your web pages. And that makes your link architecture very important.

Here's a checklist to consider in creating tags:

Title tags:
• Provides call to action - YES/NO?
• Contains less than 80 characters - YES/NO?
• Uses important keywords and phrases - YES/NO?
• Describes what the page is about - YES/NO?
• Consistent with other content components - YES/NO?

Meta Keywords:
• Contains less than 250 characters - YES/NO?
• Uses important keywords and phrases - YES/NO?
• Minimal repetition of individual words - YES/NO?
• Consistent with other content components - YES/NO?

Meta Description:
• Provides call to action - YES/NO?
• Contains less than 250 characters - YES/NO?
• Uses important keywords and phrases - YES/NO?
• Describes what the page is about - YES/NO?
• Consistent with other content components - YES/NO?

Definitely, appearing and ranking high on the Search Engine Result Pages have greater chances of perceiving clickthroughs. Meta tags help with that, and it’s positively worth the effort and time gripping, keyword-rich ones.

It is impossible to label the perfect Meta tags because there is no such thing. Testing different Meta tags and determining which of those tags rank higher is the best possible method there is.