Tags?

[aussie]

Alrighty,

I am having difficulty trying to understand what tagging is, and the difference between technatori tags, meta tags, etc, etc. I think I have the gist, but not quite...if you know what I mean. And also how does it work? Like what do I do, how do I fill out the Autometa Plugin?

Any information you can throw my way would really help as I think I'm confusing myself more than anything!

Cheers!

Kimberley

[Jim Hutchinson]

Technorati tags are a lot like your meta keywords. They should include the primary keywords in your page or article, along with related keywords that would be relevant to locating your page.

With the SimpleTags plugin activated, you can enter a list of Technorati tags at the bottom of each page or article like this:

[tags]list,your,keywords,separated,by,commas[/tags]

When your page or article is saved or published, the SimpleTags will convert all of your tags into links leading to the search on Technorati.com. Those links will be visible to anyone reading your page.

Meta tags are different in that they are hidden inside the page header. There are various meta tags, such as keywords, title, author, copyright, description, robots, expiration, classification and a lot more.

You are mostly concerned with the keywords and description. To enter those in the Autometa section, click the plus sign on the Custom Fields title bar to open the option boxes. There may be some tags created already, if you have saved your article and reopened for editing.

When you want to create a meta tag, type it into the small box on the left named Key, and its value in the larger box on the right named Value. Save your changes by clicking the Add Custom Fields button. You can then continue on to add another one.

The drop-down box on the left has some pre-defined tags, one of which is autometa. If you have podPress activated, there will be two tags for that. I have never used those and always create my own.

Hope that helps.

Jim

[aussie]

That does help actually!

But, in regards to entering the key and value. I know this may sound dumb but, what do I put into the key and what does value mean? Do I put a number value? This I think is where it's getting me. I was going over your reply and basically got everything else, except that. Hmmm.

Thanks again Jim!

[Jim Hutchinson]

We can start with the ones I listed above. The word before the colon is what you would type into the key box.

When done, you will be able to look at the page source and see each meta tag listed as:
<meta name="key" value="value" />

keywords : The keywords for your page, separated with commas.

title : The title of your page, usually the article title.

author : Your Name

copyright : 2008 Your Name (or company name)

description : Brief description of your page or article.

robots : index,follow
You want the page indexed and links followed.
To keep it out of the search engines and not follow links, enter: noindex,nofollow

expiration : Does this page expire, such as an article for a specific time period?
If it does, enter a date and time, such as: 2008-04-01 12:00:00 AM UDT

classification : Your target audience, such as Business Opportunity, Educational, Financial, Health & Fitness

Others include:
distribution : Global
(or your country/territory)

rating : SAFE FOR KIDS
(or adults only, general public, etc.)

revisit-after : 10 days
When do you want the search engines to come back and look for changes?

MSSmartTagsPreventParsing : True
(This keeps Microsoft from using "Smart Tags" on your page for those who use Internet Explorer. Smart Tags will link certain words to Microsoft advertisers or other sites they want to use.)

This is way deeper than you really ever need to get, but you can pick and choose those that you want to utilize. Some search engines will pay attention to them, while others will not.

Is your brain hurting yet?

Jim

[aussie]

My brain has been hurting for a while now! It hasn't worked this hard since I studied massage and even then that was a breeze in comparison!

The info you've given is great and it's all coming together mentally now!

Thanks so much!

Kimberley