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Correct syntax for description meta tag

         

Dexie

3:27 pm on Mar 2, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Hi all,

Does anyone have the definitive answer please, on which one of these is correct, as far as seo is concerned:

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Description" NAME="Description" CONTENT="Describe your site here">

<meta name="description" content="Describe your site here">

Sev.

benihana

3:30 pm on Mar 2, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



no difference (AFAIK) for seo.

the first one may be invalid dependent on what flavor of html/doctype your using

Dexie

3:48 pm on Mar 2, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Hi Benihana,

Many thanks for that, good point about the doctype - I use:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

The 1st one above is what msn reccomend and the 2nd one is the one I use.

What do the others here use?

Sev.

encyclo

4:23 pm on Mar 2, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



It should be:

<meta name="description" content="Describe your site here">

If MSN recommend the other one, they are wrong: http-equiv is used to represent the equivalent of an HTTP header, which the description is not. If you remove the duplication of name and http-equiv both should validate, however - the validator does not check whether the contents of the meta tag are meaningful - but name is the correct one here.

benihana

4:31 pm on Mar 2, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Doh!

didnt even notice the different syntax altogether - just saw CAPITALS and non-capitals and steamed straight in.

Apologies.. :(