WAT — Web Advisory Team

web guidelines

Improving Search Engine Hits

Guidelines for Web Page Design

If you have been to this page before and are ready to use the metadata tools, click here.

 

CONTENTS

 

Search engines can provide more accurate access to relevant web pages if those pages have properly coded HTML fields containing accurate titles, keywords, and annotative text to describe page contents. Three lines of HTML code can be added to make a page that will be more readily located by most search engines. These guidelines will assist you in coding pages that can be retrieved more accurately by users. Though there are a number of meta tag fields that can be added to an HTML document, only the three most useful meta tag fields (Title, keywords, description) are described in this document.

While the concepts below will make your pages more accurately retrievable on most search engines, our main concern is to produce better access using the UB licensed, Verity UltraSeekReg search engine software. Adding metadata is now more important, because the UltraSeekReg search engine will limit results (hits) to the top 15 pages found. Without the focus that metadata provides, your page may not make it into the 15 hits presented to the user.

 

In the HTML file, add the following data types (to see examples, click on the type):

  1. Title. This displays on the browser top bar, and also displays as the first line of a search result list. Search engines search the title for matches to the search request.
  2. Keywords. These are specific terms describing a page. Search engines look for keyword fields when trying to find relevant hits. The more exact the keywords, the more precise the search results.
  3. Description. This line is an introductory statement about the page. It will display on a search result page as the page annotation or abstract. If a description is not used, then the search engine will display the first text on the page. If the first text on the page is an address and telephone number, that is what the search results will show.

 

TITLE

When someone enters a web search, the titles will display as the top line of each hit on the search result page (view example). When viewing a web page, the title displays on the browser's top bar (image above). Also, search engines search the title for matches to search terms.

Ideally, the title should be the actual title of the page, so that the user can identify that, in fact they have the page they selected. It also helps when the user cites the page as a reference.

When creating a web page, try to create a title that desribes the content in clear and concise terms. For longer titles, create a main title and subtitle. Then you can use the main title as the page title.

If you are revising a page and cannot change the existing title, use the most prominent word(s) in the title to compose your meta title. Always try to make your titles short enough to display across the title bar and on the search results list. (Titles may run up to 100 characters, but on smaller monitors only a portion may show).

For each unit in the University Libraries, the top page (your unit's home page) should follow the standard input convention. Your unit's name appears on the Libraries Home Page Title List. All other pages should follow the syntax and examples that follow.

 

Syntax for title

Enter the page's unique title, followed by "[library unit name], UB Libraries."

For consistency, following the title use "space," two hyphens, "space," then [library name], UB Libraries. The title is entered in the HTML code as shown below:

<title>Page title -- Library Unit Name, UB Libraries</title>

The examples below show title lines (some examples are hypothetical):

<title>University Libraries Map Collection -- Arts & Sciences Libraries, UB Libraries</title>

<title>Reference Services -- Arts & Sciences Libraries,, UB Libraries</title>

<title>Reference Services -- Arts & Sciences Libraries,, UB Libraries</title>

<title>Buffalo Musicians -- Music Library, UB Libraries</title>

<title>Interlibrary Loan Request Forms -- UB Libraries</title>

<title>UB Cybraries Teaching Center (CTC) -- Arts & Sciences Libraries,, UB Libraries</title>

<title>Careers in Biology -- Arts & Sciences Libraries, UB Libraries</title>

 

Sample title coding in HTML file

<title>University Libraries Map Collection -- Science & Engineering Library, UB Libraries</title>

Insert this code following the opening statements "<html><head>" as shown in the following example:

<html><head>

<title>University Libraries Map Collection -- Arts & Sciences Libraries , UB Libraries</title>

<meta name="keywords" content="ub map collection, University Libraries Map Collection, University at Buffalo map collection, Buffalo neighborhoods map">

<meta name="description" content="Welcome to the University Libraries Map Collection Home Page. The University at Buffalo Map Collection is the largest in Western New York, containing over 300,000 maps, 4,000 aerial photos, and 500 atlases covering all regions of the world, with emphasis on New York State, the United States, and Canada.">

</head>

Go to the template

 

KEYWORDS

Keywords are specific terms describing the contents of a web page. Any number of keywords may be added, however when more keywords are used, more false hits may occur on the document, and search responses will be diluted. This may also affect how a search engine ranks a page by relevance. Some search engines may ignore pages containing excessive repetition or quantity. Try to limit the number of keywords in your page to those that are specific to the main concepts of the page.

When assigning keywords, try to think of words (or phrases) that accurately describe the page contents. Variants are possible, but limit variants to several choices, as too many variants may cause the search engine to ignore the page. Capitalization of names, words, or acronyms and initializations should be considered as variants where appropriate.

If a page contains too many key topics, this may indicate that either:

  1. the keywords are not specific enough, or;
  2. the page has too many concepts that might be better expressed using several distinct pages.

Choose keywords that are as specific and unique to the page as possible. Avoid words that are vague or generic such as: report, reference sources (unless worded as: biology reference sources), If you have a term that you want to consider, you can try searching on a search engine to see how many hits your term locates. In the example used here, the term "map collection" by itself produces 23,393 hits on Altavista. Clearly this might be too generic a term, however "UB map collection" is a more specific term that will target this specific page.

 

Syntax for keywords

Add keywords and HTML tags, as in the following example:

<meta name="keywords" content="Term or phrase 1, term or phrase 2, term or phrase 3, term or phrase 4">

Separate each keyword (or phrase), using a comma or semi-colon. Capitalization does make a difference to some search engines, and entering proper names using their proper form is fine. A variant of this would be to enter the same terms using all lowercase letters.

 

Sample coding in HTML file

In your HTML code, the keyword fields are entered in the "head" area as shown in this example:

<html><head>

<title>University Libraries Map Collection -- Arts & Sciences Libraries , UB Libraries</title>

<meta name="keywords" content="ub map collection, University Libraries Map Collection, University at Buffalo map collection, ub map library">

<meta name="description" content="Welcome to the University Libraries Map Collection Home Page. The University at Buffalo Map Collection is the largest in Western New York, containing over 300,000 maps, 4,000 aerial photos, and 500 atlases covering all regions of the world, with emphasis on New York State, the United States, and Canada.">

</head>

Go to the template

View sample search of a keyword used above.

 

DESCRIPTION

The description is a free-text annotation or abstract offering one or two sentences to explain the main topic of the page. This description will display on search result pages beneath the title. Descriptions, when present override the search engine's default function, which normally takes the first several lines of text from an HTML page to display on the search results screen. Adding a description field provides freedom to design a page without having to adjust the layout to include a description that is at the top of the screen.

The description displays up to approximately 150 characters on a search result screen. (It varies, but a continuous string of characters averaged 150. If it takes the data from the top of a page, it takes this number, or the first unbroken string up to this, meaning if the first unbroken string is your library's address, that's all you will get on the display).

 

Syntax for description

Add the description and HTML tags, as in the following example:

<meta name="description" content="This is where the description goes. Input the sentences exacly as you would when writing a short annotation, and ending with a period.">

 

Sample coding in HTML file

Insert the description into the "head" area of the HTML code where shown below:

<html><head>

<title>University Libraries Map Collection -- Arts & Sciences Libraries , UB Libraries</title>

<meta name="keywords" content="ub map collection, University Libraries Map Collection, University at Buffalo map collection, Buffalo neighborhoods map">

<meta name="description" content="Welcome to the University Libraries Map Collection Home Page. The University at Buffalo Map Collection is the largest in Western New York, containing over 300,000 maps, 4,000 aerial photos, and 500 atlases covering all regions of the world, with emphasis on New York State, the United States, and Canada.">

</head>

Go to the template

 

ADDITIONAL NOTES

1. Title Note: For uniformity among top or main pages (home pages) in the University at Buffalo Libraries, the following convention for input is desired. This convention is for the top page only. The section on syntax for titles is used for all other pages. All the units are shown below; you may copy and paste these into your meta tag field for the title.

2. Libraries Home Pages Title List

 

3. Template for Cut and Paste HTML Coding

Copy the following template, paste it into your HTML document (between the <html><head> and </head> tags) and substitute your data for the words that are highlighted in color.

<html><head>

<title>Your Title Goes Here -- Your Library Name Goes Here, UB Libraries</title>

<meta name="keywords" content="Put Term/phrase 1 here, Put Term/phrase 2 here,Put Term/phrase 3 here,Put Term/phrase 4 here">

<meta name="description" content="Your description goes here. Input the sentences exacly as you would when writing a short annotation, and ending with a period.">

</head>

 

ADDITIONAL NOTES ON META GUIDELINES

The Dublin Core Generator is a powerful metadata generator that allows simple code creation for an existing page. Add a URL to the appropriate field and the generator will return a suggested listing of tags that you can accept or edit to your liking. Then you copy and paste the coded data into your html document and upload it to the server for use.

DCG is quite able to generate reasonable terms, however, it is a machine produced set of terms and subject to machine-type errors. For simple pages, the codes may be fine, while larger, more complex pages may generate a lengthy list of data tags that may not cause search engines to find it more accurately, and which may even cause the page to sort lower on a hit list. Please use this tool with caution! You may find that the list generated has some good terms that you can add to your own meta tags.

If something in these guidelines is not clear, or if you have suggestions for improving these guidelines, please contact David Bertuca. For issues regarding metatags and their use, or further web-related concepts, contact Gemma DeVinney, Coordinator, Libraries Web Development and Services.

 

METADATA TOOLS

If you have not read the guidelines yet, please take a few moments to do so; it will assist you in correctly using the tools.

1. Metatag Submission Form.

If you wish to create metadata for a new or existing page, and want to have the tags created for you, choose your library unit from the list below, and complete the form. The form will be sent to the Web Manager for your unit, who will add this data to your page.

2. Metadata Template. If you are just looking for the HTML tags to use, you can go to the template for metadata fields. This is a cut and paste template ready to use in your HTML coding.

Dublin Core Generator. This page offers a menu driven solution for creating custom metadata tags to copy and paste into your html page. It is powerful, but it is also not perfect. You may wish to try it to see how it works for your pages. For more on the generator, read the notes section.

The Dublin Core Generator will retrieve a Web page and automatically generate Dublin Core metadata, either as HTML tags or as RDF/XML, suitable for embedding in the <HEAD>...</HEAD> section of the page. The generated metadata can be edited using the form provided and converted to various other formats (USMARC, SOIF, IAFA/ROADS, TEI headers, GILS or RDF) if required. Optional, context sensitive, help is available while editing.

 

 

Content provider: David Bertuca
Created: 21 June 2004
Comments: lib-staffweb@buffalo.edu
Last update: 27 October, 2004

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