Meta Tags for things like Analytics, social media icons, etc?

Marketing
1

I’m rebuilding my website and was just getting ready to sort out the mish-mash of Meta Tags we’ve collected over the years.

Please comment on the following…

Every page you want to track should have meta tags for:

  1. Google Analytics
  2. *anything other valuable tracking code that I am unaware of?

Home Page should also have:
3) Google Webmasters verification code
4) *anything else valuable for just the home page?

“Success” page for pay-per-click ads: (for me, the Order Confirmation page)
5) Google Adwords code
6) Bing Ads code

Any page with social media sharing icons:
7) Google +1 script
8) Facebook script
9) *any other valuable ones?

Whew! Sounds like the Head section can get a bit crowded…

Did I forget anything valuable for SEO? Is this list correct, or am I behind the times? (:

2

According to Google:
All pages should have a unique title and description and should fit the page content

I don’t know about Google Analytics meta tags.
I have used Google Analytics but do not have meta tags for it, just the Analytics code at the bottom of the page
I searched Google for “Google Analytics meta tags” and was not able to find where they are used, just “Google Webmasters verification code” from Google Tools.

hope this helps
falcon

3

Well, save your energy because meta tags aren’t as important as some people believe. http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2009/09/google_confirms.htm

4

The article states that the only single meta tag that Google does not reference is “keywords”. Many other search engines could possibly follow the Google guidelines.

“http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html”

Q: Does this mean that Google ignores all meta tags?
A: No, Google does support several other meta tags. This meta tags page documents more info on several meta tags that we do use. For example, we do sometimes use the “description” meta tag as the text for our search results snippets, as this screenshot shows:

[hr]

@Greg_Baka;
If you use PHP then set variables then include a “header.php” file.

page


<?php include "_doctype_.php"; ?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"  lang="en" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<?php 
  $title          = /* SEO IMPORTANT */    words here are usually shown in a browsers search results";   
  $description = /* SEO IMPORTANT */    words here are usually shown in a browsers search results";
  $canonical   = /* SEO IMPORTANT */   "UNIQUE_page_title_goes_here.php";
  $no_cache   = /* SEO IMPORTANT */   true - prevents Google Webmaster Tools screaming about duplicate data

  $stylesheet = "style-001.css"; 
  require VIEWPATH ."_header_.php";  // single file included in nearly 3,000 pages

  if( DEBUGGING or TESTING )
  {
    echo "<style type='text/css'>";
      echo "body {background-color: pink; color:#900;}";
    echo "</style>";
  }
?>

<head>
</body>




<?php /* "_header_php"; */ ?>

  <title><?php echo $title;?> | Joke of the Day is Going Pink for October</title>
  <meta name='description'  content='<?php echo $description;?>' />
  <link media="screen,projection,tv" href="<?php echo $stylesheet;?>" type="text/css"  rel="stylesheet" />
  <link href="<?php echo base_url() .$canonical;?>" rel="canonical" />

  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
  <meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en"/>
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width; initial-scale=1.0;"/>
  <meta name="robots" content="<?php echo $follow;?>" />
  <link href='/favicon.ico' type='image/x-icon' rel='icon' />
  <link href='/favicon.ico' type='image/x-icon' rel='shortcut icon' />
  <meta name="author"  content="John_Betong | john@johns-jokes.com" />

<?php if( $no_cache ) { ?>
  <meta Http-Equiv="Cache-Control" Content="no-cache">
  <meta Http-Equiv="Pragma" Content="no-cache">
  <meta Http-Equiv="Expires" Content="0">
  <FilesMatch "\\.(html|htm|js|css)$">
    Header set Cache-Control "max-age=0, no-cache, no-store, private"
    Header set Pragma "no-cache"
    Header set Expires "0"
  </FilesMatch>
<?php } ?>

As far as your meta tags in "header.php

  1. Google Analytics - immediately before </body>
  2. Google Webmasters verification code - prefer a single verification XML/HML file in root
  3. Google Adwords code - prefer to inlcude in body “_Google_250x250px_js”;
  4. Bing Ads code - prefer a single verification XML/HML file in root
  5. Google +1 script - prefer to have a "google_plus.js file toggle or included in page body
  6. Facebook script - prefer to have a "google_plus.js file toggle or included in page body
5

I suppose I should clarify, because that’s a simple miscommunication between industries. I’m sure for a coder meta tags must mean the description, title, and keywords. In my industry, there’s MEta Title, Meta Description, and Meta Tags (keywords) which aren’t valued as much by Google anymore due to spam/abuse. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use them, other search engines apparently count them as well.

6

Greg,
When you write about meta tags, I think you mean javascript snippets, but here is my take on your list.

You should have the Google Analytics code in the head (it’s not blocking other loading, so it’s fine to have it in the header) - but go to your Analytics settings page and make sure you have the latest code snippet.

Both Webmaster tools and Adsense can be connected to your Analytics account - that way you don’t need anything for those services.

Social plugins like google+ and Facebook is usually good to put at the end, just before the closing body tag.

What I would add is open graph metadata. It helps Facebook and Google+ show good snippets for your sites when someone shares them. Take a look at these guides:

http://stackoverflow.com/q/6536213