Photomicrograph by Wilson Bentley. Look closer . . .
Source: http://snowflakebentley.com/.
Photomicrograph by Wilson Bentley. Look closer . . .
Source: http://snowflakebentley.com/.
Place metadata tags within the <head> and </head> tags in your webpage source code. This example uses XHTML coding style, which includes a slash at the end to close the tag.
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<title>Important for Google Search</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" media="screen" type="text/css" href="mystylesheet.css" />
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<meta name="dc:creator" content="Your Name" />
<meta name="dc:description" content="Brief description" />
<meta name="dc:date" content="17-Jul-2005" />
<meta name="dc:subject" content="Your Name, kw1, kw2" />
<meta name="author" contents="Your Name" />
<meta name="description" content="Brief description" />
<meta name="keywords" content="Your Name, kw1, kw2" />
</head>
The first metatag is standard, for identifying the encoding style. The next four tags are in Dublin Core style, which is emerging as the de facto standard. The last three tags are widely supported older tag styles.
Here are all 15 Dublin Core identifiers with example XHTML codes you can use at the top of your pages:
| Dublin Core Identifier | XHTML Metadata Element | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| Title | <meta name="dc:title" content="Identifying name" /> | A name used to identify the webpage. |
| Creator | <meta name="dc:creator" content="Person, organization, or service" /> | An entity primarily responsible for making the content of the resource. |
| Subject | <meta name="dc:subject" content="Keywords, key phrases or classification codes" /> | Phrases that describe the topic |
| Publisher | <meta name="dc:publisher" content="Responsible party" /> | Person, organization, or service |
| Contributor | <meta name="dc:contributor" content="Person, organization, or service" /> | Person, organization, or service |
| Date | <meta name="dc:date" content="Date" /> | Date of creation or availability, in preferred format of the form YYYY-MM-DD |
| Type | <meta name="dc:type" content="Nature or genre of content" /> | General categories, functions, genres, or aggregation levels for content, from a controlled vocabulary or standard list. See DCMI Type Vocabulary [DCT1]. |
| Format | <meta name="dc:format" content="Person, organization, or service" /> | Media type or dimensions. Preferred: A controlled vocabulary or standard list. See Internet Media Types. |
| Identifier | <meta name="dc:identifier" content="Person, organization, or service" /> | Phrase or number from a formal identification system such as Uniform Resource Identifier (including the Uniform Resource Locator), the Digital Object Identifier, and the International Standard Book Number |
| Source | <meta name="dc:source" content="Source of content" /> | Phrase or number from a formal identification system |
| Language | <meta name="dc:language" content="en" /> | Two- and three-letter tags from RFC 3066 and ISO639 standards |
| Relation | <meta name="dc:relation" content="Reference" /> | Phrase or number from a formal identification system |
| Coverage | <meta name="dc:coverage" content="Extent or scope" /> | A place name or geographic coordinates; a period label, date, or date range; or a named administrative entity. Recommended: A controlled vocabulary or standard list. |
| Rights | <meta name="dc:rights" content="Copyright 2005 Copyright Holder" /> | Intellectual property rights and copyright |
The DCMI Element Set, from the Dublin Core website, http://www.dublincore.org/
Gail Hodge, in "Metadata Made Simpler" (2001), has long list of "Schemes, Initiatives, and Related Sites" (pp. 12-13).