Official META Tags for Top Search Engine Positions

Important Note: Please read this page in its entirety, as well as the disclaimer at the bottom of this page, before implementing any and/or all of the below META Tags for top search engine positions.

Read between the lines. You may also want to read behind the scenes too as there are some SEO secrets hidden back there.

What are META Tags?

META Tags or Metadata are pieces of information about information, plain and simple. Nothing more, nothing less.

META Tags - The Ultimate Weapon for the Savvy SEO

Knowing which META Tags to utilize and, how to use them effectively (referred to as Search Engine Optimization Best Practices), will determine whether or not your websites secure top search engine positions.

You too can easily have top search engine positions and search engine rankings just like the top Internet marketers in the industry do by utilizing the below META Tags according to the guidelines and specifications that govern their usage.

Official META Tags Used by the Major Search Engines in 2006

We're going to list these in numbered alphabetical order for easy reference.

Abstract META Tag
All quality web pages must have a Abstract META tag. This is to ensure that those search engines who may not understand the META Description tag have a logical choice to fall back on.
<meta name="abstract" content="Short abstract of the page. Usually 5 to 7 words at most, highly targeted to the page."></meta>

More Information on the Abstract META Tag
Alexa META Tag
Wondering why your Alexa Rank is so low? Insert the below Alexa META Tag and set the value to 100. Within 30 calendar days you should begin to see your Alexa Rank improve by leaps and bounds. Within 60 calendar days, you should be in the top 100 for your targeted niche.
<meta name="alexa" content="100"></meta>

More Information on the Alexa META Tag
Classification META Tag
Another top performing META Tag especially for users of Netscape. Classifications are categories that are also used by searching services.
<meta name="classification" content="Insert comma separated list of keyword phrases here."></meta>
Google Robots META Tag
By default, Googlebot is set to index web pages and follow links on web pages. Extensive testing (from a dataset of one) shows that adding the Googlebot META Robots Tag ensures a quick and clean indexing. This tag should appear on all pages that you want indexed properly by Google. You'll want to include duplicate directives to make sure Googlebot fully understands your request so be sure to list "all" as the first directive.
<meta name="googlebot" content="all, index, follow"></meta>
If your not sure which directives to use, you can always list all of them just to be on the safe side. Be sure to list "all" as the first directive.
<meta name="googlebot" content="all, index, follow, none, noindex, nofollow, noarchive, nosnippet"></meta>

More Information on the Google Robots META Tag
PageRank™ META Tag
By far one of the most important metadata elements. PageRank can be easily influenced. Adding the PageRank™ META Tag ensures that your web pages will rank highly in Google. The value can be set anywhere from 1 to 10 with 10 being the maximum amount of PageRank™ you are allowed.
Be sure to include the ™ symbol or Google will ignore the tag completely. PageRank™ is a Google trademarked term.
<meta name="pagerank™" content="10"></meta>
More Information on Google PageRank™
Revisit and Revisit-After META Tags
I'm a firm believer that you should double up on your META Tags whenever possible. These two are very important elements in the overall indexing of your web pages. Extensive research shows that using the Revisit and Revisit-After META Tags increases spider activity from the major search engines and improves your chances of being indexed on a strict schedule.
The value of the revisit duration is set in number of days. We like "2 days". This keeps the spiders from over-indulging in our valued bandwidth. It also keeps the bad bots from indexing our content every 60 seconds.

Hours, minutes and/or seconds are incorrect syntax for this tag and it will be ignored if incorrect syntax is detected by those bots that obey and support it.

<meta name="revisit" content="2 days"></meta> <meta name="revisit-after" content="2 days"></meta>

More Information on the Revisit-After META Tag
Robots META Tag
By default, most, if not all robots are set to index and follow web pages. Extensive testing shows that adding the Robots META Tag ensures a quick and clean indexing. This tag should appear on all pages that you want indexed properly by the search engines.
You'll want to include duplicate directives to make sure the robots fully understand your request so be sure to include "all" as the first directive.

<meta name="robots" content="all, index, follow"></meta>

If your not sure which directives to use, you can always list all of them just to be on the safe side.

<meta name="robots" content="all, index, follow, none, noindex, nofollow"></meta>

More Information on the Robots META Tag
SERPs META Tag
I personally make extensive use of this one. The value is set in SERP position (numerically). There are also additional directives such as ATF (above the fold) and BTF (below the fold).
Additional directives must come after the numerical values. You must list the numerical values in the order in which you wish to be ranked. For example, if SERP 1 is occupied, then you would fall back to 2. If 2 were occupied, then you would fall back to 3, etc. In my example below, I prefer SERPs 1, 2, 3, 10, 11, 12, and 13 along with anything ATF.

<meta name="serps" content="1, 2, 3, 10, 11, 12, 13, ATF"></meta>

More Information on the SERPs META Tag
Subject META Tag
In addition to using the Abstract and Description META Tags, the Subject META Tag is another top performer. I normally recommend that you cut and paste your META Description into the Abstract and Subject META Tags. This ensures that the search engine spiders fully understand what the page is about. One is not enough!
<meta name="subject" content="Cut and paste Description META Tag here."></meta>

More Information on the META Description Tag
Title META Tag
In addition to the <title> Element, the Title META Tag is another way of helping the search engine spiders fully understand what the page is about. I've also been able to take extremely competitive terms and rank highly by using this tag in conjunction with the <title> Element. You should cut and paste your <title> Element directly into the Title META Tag like this...
<meta name="title" content="<title>Insert page title here.</title>"></meta>

More Information on the Title Element
SEO Consultants Directory META Tag
Probably one of the more powerful and relevant tags on the list, use of the SEO Consultants Directory META Tag guarantees that the search engines will index your web pages accordingly. The value can be set from 1 to 5 with a value of 5 ensuring maximum credit from the search engines and directories.
1 = Has a Clue
2 = Somewhat Clueless
3 = Clueless
4 = Clueless about being Clueless
5 = Clueless to the Nth Degree

<meta name="seoconsultantsdirectory" content="5"></meta>

More Information on the SEO Consultants Directory META Tag

Okay, I think we've covered the basics. Are there any that we missed? Please, no irrelevant META Tags. It's not like we don't have a plethora of them out there already. Let's keep this page focused on those META Tags that are only relevant and used by the major search engines for top search engine positions.

Disclaimer: Please do not implement any of the above irrelevant META Tags. This information is meant to be satirical in nature. If you do implement any of the above META Tags for Top Search Engine Positions, then you probably qualify for a Premiere Listing in The Clueless SEO Link Exchange Directory. The "Real Deal" on Metadata can be found here in our META Tags Index.