Add New Content Effortlessly to Your Website with RSS FeedsWritten by Craig Desorcy
RSS Feeds are latest in cutting-edge tools for alert webmasters. Globally, consumers are gobbling up this latest trend. The convenience of being able to monitor all of their favorite feeds in one place carries tremendous appeal. Webmasters and marketers find RSS feeds equally as attractive. The instant widespread distribution of content updates becomes a breeze with RSS feeds. Many believe that in near future, webmasters who don’t utilize this optimal communication tool will be in minority.Joe banged desk next to his keyboard, making his coffee tilt precariously. He was irate to say least. For past 15 minutes he’d been browsing websites looking for that tidbit of information he needed to complete his presentation due in 25 minutes. His growls would have intimidated anyone less courageous than typical mountain lion, but Joe was fed up. To make matters worse, he knew that he’d recently visited a site with information. His inability to recall which of thousand sites he’d perused in last weeks had him boiling. In cubicle to right sat Sally, “always-on-time Sally.” How did she do it? It seemed that everything she looked for was at her fingertips and only a minute or two away. If he weren’t so galled by his inability to find that one lit bit of info, he’d ask her. Of course her eyes would light up, she’d snap her fingers and say, “Oh I know where we can find that!” The thought irked him. The secret to Sally’s seemingly pristine organization skills...you guessed it - RSS feeds all posted to one page. She had her favorite news feed, her favorite blogs, latest marketing and computer tech feeds, and even Garfield - her favorite cartoon - all posted to one page. When it came time to look for a tidbit of information, Sally knew right where to go. In fact last time, she’d had to spend time using search engines was when her cat had fleas, and she wanted to find out which flea shampoo was most effective.
| | Using "Robots" Meta TagsWritten by Stephani Richardson
The "robots" meta tag, when used properly, will tell search engine spiders whether or not to index and follow a particular page. Some examples of usage are as follows: <meta name="robots" content="index,follow"> <meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow"> <meta name="robots" content="index,nofollow"> <meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow"> Let us first examine what these terms mean before we explain usage for each one: "index"- This directive tells search engine robots (or spiders) that it is okay to index page. Another words, you are allowing search engine to include your page within their search directory. "noindex"- Using this tag, you are letting robots know that this page should not be indexed. Simply put, this page will not appear in their search directory. "follow"- When you use this tag, you are telling search engines that you want their robot to follow any links that are found on that page. "nofollow"- The opposite of above definition, this directive will tell robots not to follow any links on your page. Putting it all together: With robots tags explained, let's examine usage for each one. 1. <meta name="robots" content="index,follow"> This tag will be used when you want search engine spiders to index page and follow links to other pages. Most search engines use this setting as a "default" setting. It is possible that you may not even need to use this tag if you want search engines to follow and index page. However, an article at Search Engine World (searchengineworld.com/metatag/robots.htm) suggests that Inktomi does not use this as their default setting. Instead, they use "index, nofollow" tag. Better safe than sorry! There has been much debate over whether or not it is necessary to use this tag. If there is even a slight possibility that some search engines do not use this as default setting, then it would only make sense to include this tag if you want your page included in their search directory AND your links to be followed. Do research and decide for yourself. 2. <meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow"> This tag can be used to tell search engines that you do not want page included in their directory, but you DO want them to follow links that lead to other pages. A good example of its usage would be your disclaimer or privacy policy pages. You may not want these pages to show up in search engines if they are only important to your actual visitors. However, if links on these pages point to other pages that you want search engines to find, then you would still want spiders to "follow" those links. 3. <meta name="robots" content="index,nofollow"> This tag will allow your page to be indexed in search engines, but any links on that page will not be followed. 4. <meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow"> When using this tag, search engine spiders will not include this page in their directory and will not follow any links on page either. Where does "robots" tag belong? The "robots" meta tag should be used within <head> and </head> tags of your page. These tags are located at top of html coding. It will look something like this: <html> <head> <title>Title of your page goes here</title> <meta name="keywords" content="word1,word2,word3,word4"> <meta name="description" content="A brief description of content of this page."> <meta name="robots" content="index,follow"> </head> <body> Your webpage information here. </body> </html>
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