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META tags - What are they?

Briefly, META tags, are instructions or key words you can add to your web pages, to help some search engines describe, classify and index your web site. The META tag is used by search engines to allow them to more accurately list your site in their indexes. It is what they look at first when deciding what your page is about.
META tags are only for search engine's use and to provide some additional information about your pages.

What does a META tag look like?

the code must be placed beween <HEAD> and </HEAD> tags of your webpage. See red sample-code below:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Your Web Page Title</TITLE>
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Your description comes here">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="keyword1, keyword2, keyword3">
<META NAME="author" CONTENT="Lina Al Boraim">
</HEAD>
<BODY>
The content of your webpage
</BODY>
</HTML>

but note that you don't have to have a </META> at the end of the tag, the way that you do with something like <BOLD> bolded word</BOLD>.
However, make sure that each tag does not include any line breaks, since some search engines get confused about this.

What are the main META tags?

There are several META tags, but the most important for search engine indexing are the description and keywords tags and you should be concerned with.

The description META tag allows you to create the site description that a search engine will display when someone searches the web. It is a short summary of the content of the page.
Your description needs to include some of your best keywords, but it must also stay readable to a person .. The true function of the description is to invite a click

let's talk about my site:
<META name="description" content="If you are looking to improve your designing skills by free tutorials and to get free stuff that help you in designing, you have come to the right place">

The keyword META tag gives your page a chance to come up if someone types in any of the words listed. It allows you to tell the search engines what keywords relate to your site.
If i want someone who is searching the web to find Studio Lina website, i would include the word "photoshop" as a keyword. In addition, I should include other keywords such as graphics designing, flash, free stuff, webpage designing, Interfaces, Free Tutorials, free, etc. I just add in my words, separated by commas (but it's not that necessary).

So, keywords are the words people will type in to a search engine. If the keywords I have chosen are the same as the ones they have put in, I come up in the search engine's results pages

Be sure to include the description and keywords meta tag on all your web pages! but make it relevant to the content on each page.
How high up you are depends on your ability to pick good words and use a good description to your site.

How can i look at these META tags for other sites?

In Microsoft IE, click View, then click Source from the pulldown menu.
In Netscape, click View, then click Document Source from the pulldown menu.

You'll see the code for the web page. The meta tags will be near the very top.

META Tags: 3 Common Mistakes:

1. Don't load your description with only keywords.
Remember that some engines use that description in its search results under your site's title. It has to grab the attention of the reader and convince him/her to click through to your site.

2. Don't use just one or two keywords and don't use a million either.
Some search engines ignore pages that use only one or two words in the keyword META-tag. And some search engines regard pages with hundreds of keywords as spam pages. Aim for about twenty keywords. Forty can be good.

3. Don't rely on your META-tags alone
Some search engines don't even look at META tags. META-tags help, but not always.
They only make up a small part of your total search engine strategy. Believe or not, pages that do not have META-tags sometimes rank higher than pages with META-tags. So META-tags are not all that important.
So let's make it clear:
Meta tags are not a magic solution. Use them, but in combination with other strategies.