Meta name = classification and subject?

Need to know more about these

[gempdx]

Hi,

I recently "inherited" the management of my company's web site.

In the process of evaluating the meta name keywords and description for this site, I've found that our site also uses the meta tags "classification" and "subject" in the source code, and that both tags have a subset of what is currently in "keywords".

I've looked up some meta tag tutorials but have yet to find one that explains "classification" and "subject".

Can someone explain what these are, and if they are worth worrying about?

Thanks for your help!

G.

[mack]

I have never came across these tags before. It is possible the old webmaster was using them almost as referances perhaps. Meta tags are becoming very much depreciated by the major se's lately. I would concider dropping all but the popular ones.

Hope this is of some help.

Mack.

[pageoneresults]

Could we see the formatting of the tag? There is a subject meta tag that can be used from the Dublin Core Metadata [dublincore.org].

Here is a fairly extensive list of possible metadata that can be used...

HTML META Tags [vancouver-webpages.com]

P.S. Classification appears to be a Netscape Gold specific tag. Subject appears to be specific to MS Word.

[gempdx]

Thanks everyone. The tags look like this, I've removed the specific keywords:

<meta name="classification" content="a list of keywords here">

<meta name="subject" content="a list of keywords here">

The keywords contained within these tags are just a subset of what is already in the meta keywords tag.

Based on your responses, I would guess that "classification" and "subject" really aren't worth worrying about and do not need to be considered for the site redesign.

G.

[Mohamed_E]

You may want to look at my post (msg #7) in [webmasterworld.com...] where I give my take on a large array of meta tags.

Other than description and http-equiv Content-type (if that is how you choose to communicate your character set) none are really useful, though keywords may have some residual utility.

[pageoneresults]

The keywords contained within these tags are just a subset of what is already in the meta keywords tag.

I was sort of waiting for that to come up! I've seen just about every meta tag out there used for keyword stuffing. This comes from people reading information out there on the web that recommends this stuffing practice. It also comes from people viewing source code. Someone sees it on a site ranking highly, then copies the gimmick thinking it will do the same for them. This is how meta data myths are perpetrated.

Unfortunately, these tags are ignored. If you look at the link I provided above, they tell you which meta tags serve what purpose and whether or not they are used for search engine indexing.

As Mohammed_E mentions, there are only a few (less than 5) that you should be focusing on.