************************************************************
Meta Magic
It would appear that it
’
s time for a Meta refresher!
Ther have been several
questions about these little marvels recently and since they are so
important for those who wish to gain good search engine replacement, here
goes:
Simply stated, META tags contain information about the page on which they
appear.
They can also contain certain directives
—
more about that later.
There are two types of META tag: HTTP-EQUIV and NAME.
A META tag with a NAME attribute provides information about the document
(web page) that contains it.
The NAME attribute specifies the type of
information, and the CONTENT attribute specifies the information itself.
For example,
<
META NAME=
"
Ice Cream Flavor
"
CONTENT=
"
Vanilla
"
>
defines
information about an Ice Cream Flavor and specifies Vanilla (my personal
favorite
–
please don
’
t ever call it
"
just plain
"
!!)
The syntax allows for just about anything you could dream up, there are
certain values for the NAME attribute that have well known, or generally
accepted meanings.
These values include AUTHOR, DESCRIPTION and KEYWORDS.
The meanings of these META tags are most important to the search engines.
Many of the search engine robots use the information contained in your
pages
’
META tags for placement of your page in the engines listings.
If you
are trying to promote a website, this could be very important.
Suppose we
have a web page for Ice Cream Inc., a manufacturer of Chocolate, Strawberry
and, of course, Vanilla ice cream, and we wish to have our page well placed
for anybody looking for these flavors of ice cream to find. we would add the
following META tags to the page for the search engine robots to read:
<
META NAME=
"
AUTHOR
"
CONTENT=
"
Ice Cream, Inc., IT Dept.
"
>
<
META NAME=
"
DESCRIPTION
"
CONTENT=
"
The manufacturer of the best Chocolate,
Strawberry and, of course, Vanilla Ice Cream in the known universe.
"
>
<
META NAME=
"
KEYWORDS
"
CONTENT=
"
Ice, Cream, Chocolate, Strawberry, Vanilla,
Manufacturer, Gourmet, Dessert, Delicious
"
This should provide an appropriate set of information to the robots!
Notice
that you can add a variety of different aspects to your KEYWORD list.
Be
careful not to violate any copyright or patent laws, however
—
you may not
use someone else
’
s name to advertise your products or services without their
permission.
You can also use META tags to direct (most) search engine robots to skip
your page if you wish to.
This is equivalent to placing a
"
robots.txt
"
file
in your web site directory.
The META tag has a NAME=
"
ROBOT
"
attribute, and
a CONTENT attribute with value choices of:
"
ALL | NONE | INDEX | NOINDEX |
FOLLOW | NOFOLLOW
"
.
The default value
"
ALL
"
indicates that this page should
be indexed and all links on this page may be followed to other pages.
"
INDEX, NOFOLLOW
"
indicates that this page is to be indexed, but links
should not be followed to other pages.
"
NONE
"
would indicate don
’
t index
and don
’
t follow links.
You can see the possible combinations!
"
robots.txt?
"
you ask?
I heard! a file with the name
"
robots.txt
"
(lower
case, without the quotes) provides a similar control mechanism.
The format
is as follows:
User-agent: *
Disallow /
This example prevents everything from the web site
’
s root on down from being
indexed by any (robots.txt aware) search engine agent (robot).
"
Disallow:
/herenondx
"
would prevent everything in the
"
herenondx
"
directory from being
indexed.
Only one
"
User-agent:
"
line may appear.
It can use a wildcard as
in this example or specific user agents may be named.
There may not be any
blank lines in the file, and if the file contains errors it will most likely
be ignored.
HTTP-EQUIV META tags allow the web page developer to add the equivalent of
HTTP header information into the web page itself.
The browser can then
access this information at the time the page is read.
The server may also
use it when the document is being sent.
The format of this tag involves the
HTTP-EQUIV attribute being set to the header type, while the CONTENT value
provides the header information itself.
As an example:
<
META
HTTP-EQUIV=
"
Expires
"
CONTENT=
"
Tue, 31 Dec 2002 23:59:59 GMT
"
>
sets the
expiration date for the document to be the last second of this year, GMT
(Greenwich, London.)
Some of the header equivalents available are as follows:
Expires
As in the example provided above, this tag provides an expiration date for a
document.
If a browser has a copy of a requested page in its cache, it will
show that copy unless it has expired.
If you, for example, update your page
every day and want your visitors always to see the new version, you could
set the expiration to midnight each night.
The next day, their browser
would request a fresh copy of your page.
Pragma
<
META HTTP-EQUIV=
"
Pragma
"
CONTENT=
"
no-cache
"
>
This tells the browser not to store this page in cache in the first place.
If you are doing this for security purposes, please remember that just
because you have sent the instruction to the browser, does not mea it will
follow it.
There may be browsers that don
’
t implement all the rules.
Providing this tag may help, but is not a guarantee.
Refresh
<
META HTTP-EQUIV=
"
Refresh
"
CONTENT=
"
10;URL=http://www.displaysecond.com/page2.html
"
>
Known as Client-Pull, this tag instructs the browser to fetch another page
after a specified number of seconds.
In this example, the browser will go
to
after displaying the current page for
10 seconds.
A value of zero for the seconds will send the browser to the
second page right away.
Used creatively, this could provide a means for
changing displayed content every few seconds.
You might, for example, have
a frame or iframe in which a series of pages invoke each other every five
seconds, somewhat like a banner rotation.
Window-target
<
META HTTP-EQUIV=
"
Window-target
"
CONTENT=
"
_top
"
>
This specifies the named window for the page and is most commonly used, as
in this example, to prevent a page from being displayed within another
framed page.
Using JavaScript for this purpose may actually be a better way
of accomplishing this.
There is a discussion of the necessary code at
.
PICS-Label
<
META http-equiv=
"
PICS-Label
"
content='(PICS-1.1
"
http://vancouver-webpages.com/VWP1.0/"
l gen true comment
"
VWP1.0
"
by
"
author@authorsdomain.com"
on
"
2002.12.16T12:34-0800
"
for
"
http://www.authorsdomain.com/"
r (P 2 S 0 SF -2 V 0 Tol -2 Com 0 Env -2 MC -3 Gam -1 Can 0 Edu -1 ))
’
>
Did you get that?
The PICS-Label, Platform for Internet Content Selection,
is a mechanism for rating pages for content filtering purposes.
It involves
a labeling system that can be identified by content filtering software to
ensure that only suitable content finds its way, for example, into the
classroom of a children
’
s school.
There is too much involved with this tag
for discussion in this newsletter, but I can point you at
for more
information.
There
’
s also a free PICS-Label generator service at
.
Thanks for Reading!
–
Vince Barnes
************************************************************
Q & A Goodies***********************************
Questions are taken from submissions to our Community
Mentors. You can ask a Mentor a question by going to
My page has a background that is green down the left side, much like HTML
Goodies has a curvy brown strip down the side. I
’
d like my links that are
situated in the green area to show white, and the links that are situated in
the white area to be green. This is much like your HTML Goodies page, and
I
’
ve looked at your source but can
’
t figure out how to do it.
A.You can do it using style sheet commands like so:
In between the head tags define your commands:
<
HEAD
>
<
STYLE TYPE=
"
text/css
"
>
A:LINK {COLOR: white;}
A.TWO:LINK {COLOR:green;}
<
/STYLE
>
<
/HEAD
>
Code the links in the green background like you normally do:
<
A HREF=
"
somewhere.com
"
>
Link
<
/A
>
In the white area use the two class like so:
<
A CLASS=
"
TWO
"
HREF=
"
somewhere.com
"
>
Link
<
/A
>
Q.Is there an equivalent of ASP for Apache servers?
A.There is a third-party package that works with Apache. Check out
.
I want to add a link on my pages that would allow my visitors to go back
to the last page they were looking at, no matter which page it was (like the
"
Back
"
button, but a hyperlink).
How do I code this?
A.You can use a piece of javascript that works just like the browsers back
button. Code it like so:
<
a href=
"
javascript:history.go(-1)
"
>
Go Back
<
/a
>
Do you use href to open a link in a new window?
A.Yes you do. You add the target=
"
blank
"
for a new window. Code it like so:
<
a href=
"
http://www.somewhere.com"
target=
"
_blank
"
>
Somewhere
<
/a
>
My server supports CGI, PERL, PHP
&
MySQL, but not ASP.
What is the
easiest way to add a shopping cart capability with credit card processing
capability?
A.You can buy a shopping cart that will run on what your host supports.
First check with your host to make sure that they allow uploading a shopping
cart. Then take a look at this site:
It has a lot of pre-built carts that will run on a server that supports PHP.
They seem fairly inexpensive. Before you buy one, make sure it has
everything you are looking for and if possible, see if they offer a demo for
you to try.
I
’
d like to do is create a template (basically a header and footer) so
that I can update the top and bottom of all my webpages by only altering one
file for each.
A.You can use SSI to include a page at the top and a page at the bottom, if
your server supports this.
Take a look at this tutorial:
About half way down the page it explains SSI and include pages.
News Goodies***********************************
U.S. Ups Pressure on China Over IP Rights[
May 2, 2005
]
Washington says Beijing
’
s infringement levels remain
unacceptably high.
Read the article:
[
May 2, 2005
]
Officials want companies thinking intelligently about
integration.
Read the article:
[
May 2, 2005
]
The folks in Redmond have tossed their backing behind an
ultrawideband contender.
Read the article:
[
May 2, 2005
]
After a brief flirtation with Qwest, the telecom
’
s board
endorses Verizon
’
s new $8.4B takeover bid.
Read the article:
[
May 2, 2005
]
The company signals that it will ship new products in a few
weeks.
Read the article:
[
April 29, 2005
]
The latest version of the Globus Toolkit, the de facto
standard for grid computing, appears to be aimed squarely at growing
commercial and enterprise interest in grid technology.
Read the article:
[
April 29, 2005
]
Tiger Direct balks at the Macintosh-maker
’
s marketing
campaign.
Read the article:
[
April 29, 2005
]
FEATURE: Microsoft wants everything from printers to
cameras to cell phones communicate via Web services.
Read the article:
[
April 29, 2005
]
The market was volatile on Friday, but Microsoft spent the
whole day in the green.
Read the article:
[
April 27, 2005
]
The company hopes to accelerate Linux adoption with the new
partnership.
Read the article:
***********************************
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Ploof! It now is!
If you would like to comment on the newsletter or expand/improve on
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When you
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Please don
’
t send
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They should be sent to our mentors: see
Thanks for all your feedback!
***********************************
New Files and Folders in ASP.NET 2.0With the release of ASP.NET 2.0, Microsoft has greatly increased the power
of ASP.NET by introducing a suite of new features and functionalities. As
part of this release, ASP.NET 2.0 also comes with a host of new special
files and folders that are meant to be used to implement a specific
functionality. This article examines these new files and folders in detail
and provides examples that demonstrate how to utilize them to create ASP.NET
2.0 applications.
We
’
ve all been faced with the problem of validating an email address that a
user has entered into one of our web forms. Too often the email validation
stops at simply checking that the text submitted contains the
"
@
"
and
"
.
"
characters, but for many applications this really isn
’
t good enough. This
article starts by breifly explaining the situation and then walks you
through building a page that takes an email address and checks its validity
by performing a MX lookup on the address
’
s domain.
While you, me, and other countless developers around the world have been
learning and working with version 1.x of the .NET Framework over the last
several years, the developers inside Microsoft have been hard at work on
version 2.0. In this article we
’
ll examine the express version Web
developers will find most useful, Visual Web Developer 2005 Express. Read on
to learn more!
***********************************
On this day in
…
1519artist Leonardo Da Vinci died;
1670King Charles II of
England chartered the Hudson Bay Company;
1878the US stopped minting
the twenty cent coin;
1885the first
"
Good Housekeeping
"
magazine was
published;
1887Hannibal W Goodwin patented celluloid photographic
film;
1932Jack Benny
’
s radio sow premiered on NBC radio;
1938Ella Fitzgerald recorded
"
A Tisket, A Tasket
"
;
1946five died in a
prisoners
’
revolt at Alcatraz;
1952The first scheduled jet airliner
passenger service began with a BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation)
Comet;
1969The ocean liner (Cunard Line) Queen Elizabeth II set sail
on her maiden voyage (to New York city);
1975Apple Records closed
down;
1994Michael Bolton was found to have plagiarized Isley
Brothers
’
"
Love is Wonderful Thing
"
;
1997Police arrested transsexual
hooker Atisone Seiuli with Eddie Murphy;
Born today were: in
1837writer of parliamentary Rules of Order,
General Henry Martyn Robert;
1869English actor Tyrone Power Sr.;
German WWI air ace
"
the Red Baron
"
Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen;
pediatrician/author Dr. Benjamin Spock;
1925actor John
Neville;
1945former wife of Mick, Bianca Pirez Morena de Macias
Jagger;
1945English musician Robert Henrit (the Kinks, Argent);
actress Jo Ann Pflug;
1952actress Christine Baranski;
musician Jay Osmond;
1959actor Brian Tochi;
1962actress Elizabeth Berridge;
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