Working With META tags in Mambo

This tutorial takes you through working with META tags in Mambo.

Meta Tags in Global Configuration

In your Mambo global configuration, you have an option to add some METADATA. META description and META keywords are available. What are these for and how do you use them?

META tags can perform various functions. For the purposes of this FAQ, I am only going to talk about the META description and keyword tags. Some people think these are important for search engine optimisation however there is no compelling evidence that leaving them out harms a site's rankings in search engines.

Most search engines will use your META description data. If you don't have META description, the search engines will calculate their own description based on the text of your page. If your site is listed in DMOZ, some search engines will use that description instead.

The META description is used by most search engines. The META keywords, however, are not. Some search engines still use them but nobody really knows if they add any real value to a site.

How to Use Your Meta Description and/or Keywords.

First, you access these options in your Global Configuration.

META descriptions should be an accurate description of your content. The content of every page of your site is different, so in the global METADATA you may only want to add a very brief, general description. This description will only appear in the METADATA of content items that have an empty META description in the parameters. (See the SEO Tips below for more information).

Do NOT format this in any way! These tags are META content and must not be styled or formatted. The term META is from METADATA, which means data about other data. It is not there to be viewed by people, its there to provide additional data about your site to machines. So, no line breaks, no carriage returns, just enter plain old text and let the editing box wrap the content. Mambo will produce the correct META tags for your site as long as you just enter unstyled text.

META keywords must also be entered without any line breaks or carriage returns. These are just one line of words that you use repeatedly within your content. Break each word or set of words up with a comma. You can enter individual words or phrases - its up to you.

Let's look at some examples: If your site is about selling pet supplies for cats and dogs, you would want to tell search engines that this is what your site is all about.

If you entered this into your META description area in your Global Configuration options, "Pet supplies for cats and dogs with free delivery to your home. Visit our online store for everything your cat or dog may need." (without the quotation marks)…

Mambo would add this to your page header:

<META NAME="description"CONTENT="Pet supplies for cats and dogs with free delivery to your home. Shop online for everything your cat or dog may need. ">

Relevant keywords might be: cats, dogs, pet supplies, pet food supplies, shop, free delivery, home delivery, pets

Just remember, do not add formatting. If you do, you will need to manually edit your configuration.php to remove the formatting because there's a good chance you will temporarily break your site!

SEO Tip:
To use METADATA correctly it has to be relevant to the content of the page in which it is placed. Every content item (page) will have different content, so your META description for each content item will also be different. Your META keywords should be different as well. For SEO purposes, leave the META description and META keywords fields in your global configuration empty. Each content item offers parameters for adding these on a page-by-page basis. So, while the global configuration METADATA options may appear to be useful they can harm search engine optimisation efforts.

In another tutorial we will look at the META parameters for content items.