Applying metadata to your pages
Metadata is information about your content such as title, subject, and description. If two pages were exactly the same but one had subject metadata and the other did not, the page with metadata would be ranked higher (read more about making your site easier to find).
Metadata appears in the code of a web page as a META tag. These tags are bolded in the example below:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>About the Platypus - ANU</TITLE>
<META NAME="DC.Subject" CONTENT="Platypus; Marsupial; Australian; Native">
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1>The Platypus</H1>
<P>The platypus is an aquatic animal native to Australia.</P>
</BODY>
</HTML>
The value in the Name section refers to the type of metadata and the value in the Content section is the value for that type. In the example above, the Subjects for the page are Platypus, Marsupials, Australian, Native. DC stands for Dublin Core, which is a group responsible for metadata standards.
Types of Metadata
There are many metadata tags that you can use. A reccomended set of tags is included below. Replace all the content in square brackets [xxx] with your own values.
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<title>[Title of the page] - ANU</title>
<meta name="dc.subject" content="[keywords about the content separated with semi colons]">
<meta name="dc.creator" content="The Australian National University, [name of the area and author]">
<meta name="dc.description" content="[add a brief description]">
</HEAD>
Other tags which are helpful are:
<meta name="audience" content="[values from the audience list separated with semi colons]">
A suggested list of audiences is available at http://info.anu.edu.au/cis/APeP_ePublishing/Policy_and_Standards/Metadata/_Standard_Elements_and_Classifications/Audience.asp
<meta name="dc.rights" content=http://www.anu.edu.au/legal/copyrit.html; [your own metadata statement (optional)]>
Particularly relevant for authors who wish to hold copyright.
<meta name="dc.date.validTo" content="[date content is valid until in yyyy-mm-dd format]">
Helps people determine when your content has expired.
<meta name="dc.date" content="[date created in yyyy-mm-dd format]">
Often handy to know when a page was created (rather than just updated which is what appears in the footer).
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