How Meta Tags Work

Meta tags do not affect the appearance of a website and are not visible when you look at a Web page, but they provide information regarding the content of the site. For example, the keyword meta tag for a website offering handmade watches and related items may appear as follows:

And the description meta tag (which also appears in many search engines' results pages) may look like:

Meta tags are used primarily by search engines that wade through the HTML code and text of each page. When a search engine finds a search term in a meta tag, it indexes the Web page for display in its search results. Over the past few years, because websites manipulated their keywords so much, keyword meta tags decreased in importance in search algorithms. In fact, Google ignores keyword meta tags altogether, although it still relies somewhat on description meta tags

Tips for choosing the right domain name

In addition to registering your business name as a domain name, you may want to register the names of your products or services, or other related names. For example, if you design and sell gourmet aprons, and your primary domain name is countrystyle.com, you might also want to register aprons.com so that customers who are looking for aprons and enter "aprons" into their browser will land at your site.

It's also a good idea to register common misspellings of your primary domain name and of the names that reflect the nature of your products or services. Keep in mind, however, that it's illegal to register a domain name solely for the purpose of blocking someone with a legitimate right to the domain name from using it.