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Meta Tag Help

What Are Meta Tags?
Meta tags are tiny bits of code in web pages which are invisible to web site visitors, but are heavily used by search engines. All search engines use meta tag data to determine what a page is about and how to include it in their search pages.

UCCS Web Standards now require meta tags for all UCCS websites. To assist university staff and students in adding meta tags to their webpages we have created this web program and the following tutorials.

Basic Idea of Adding Meta Tags to Your Site
To update your site with the correct meta tag information to be included in not only our A to Z directory, but in any search engine, you will need to copy and include the code we prepare for you within the HTML page of your site. To do this with Web Page Authoring Software, you must put the software in Source Code editing mode.
We will show you how to do this in Microsoft Frontpage and Macromedia Dreamweaver.

Microsoft Frontpage:
  1. Open Frontpage and open your index page for editing. This page is usually the homepage of your website. This file is called 'index.htm' or 'index.html'.
  2. Click the 'Code' tab on the bottom left of your screen to view the HTML code. You should see a lot of web coding on your screen.
  3. Find the <HEAD> and </HEAD> tags in the code near the top of the page file.
  4. If you cannot find these two tags, you can search for them by clicking 'Edit > Search' in the menu. Then type <head> into the search field.
  5. Your <META> and your <TITLE> tags live inside your <HEAD> tags we will be replacing these with code from our website.
  6. Find all your <META> and your <TITLE> tags in between these two tags. They should be easy to locate. Do not highlight or select the <HEAD> tag's themselves.
  7. Make sure you have not highlighted any code that you might need later. Examples are any CSS stylesheet codes, or javascript codes.
    Tip: Usually these codes live inside <STYLE> and <SCRIPT> tags. Link tags, or <LINK> tags hold links to scripts and stylesheets so be careful with them as well. Make sure none of the code inside these tags will be deleted.
  8. When you have found your <META> and <TITLE> tags, you may delete them. Be sure that no code outside your <HEAD> tags is deleted. If you did, hit the 'Undo' command: 'Control Z'.
  9. Save and upload the changed 'index' file to the server.

   >  Frontpage Screenshots

Opening A File
Design View
Switching Views
Replacing Code
Macromedia Dreamweaver
  1. Open Dreamweaver and edit your index page. This file is usually called 'index.htm' or 'index.html'.
  2. Click the 'Source' tab on the top of your screen (see graphic) to view the HTML code. You should see a lot of web coding on your screen.
  3. Find the <HEAD> and </HEAD> tags in the code near the top of the page file.
  4. If you cannot find these two tags, you can search for them by clicking 'Edit > Search' in the menu. Then type <head> into the search field.
  5. Your <META> and your <TITLE> tags live inside your <HEAD> tags we will be replacing these with code from our website.
  6. Find all your <META> and your <TITLE> tags in between these two tags. They should be easy to locate. Do not highlight or select the <HEAD> tag's themselves.
  7. Make sure you have not highlighted any code that you might need later. Examples are any CSS stylesheet codes, or javascript codes.
    Tip: Usually these codes live inside <STYLE> and <SCRIPT> tags. Link tags, or <LINK> tags hold links to scripts and stylesheets so be careful with them as well. Make sure none of the code inside these tags will be deleted.
  8. When you have found your <META> and <TITLE> tags, you may delete them. Be sure that no code outside your <HEAD> tags is deleted. If you did, hit the 'Undo' command: 'Control Z'.
  9. Save and upload the changed 'index' file to the server.

   >  Dreamweaver Screenshot

Replacing Code

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