META ATTRIBUTES - DOES ORDER MATTER!?!
-
Good Morning Mozers,
I am currently working with a developer on a new website and they've recently sent me some mock-ups. When I viewed the source, however, the order of the 'META' attributes was much different than any web page I've seen before.
From what it appears, the developer had placed 'mobile', 'cache expiration' and a number of other attributes much more highly than what I'm used to seeing the portion lead with, i.e. META description, META keywords, etc.
With that, my question for the community is: does the order of the META 'attributes' matter when developing a new website?
If you have (what appear to be) less important attributes placed closer to the beginning tag, does it make (what were previously considered the most 'relevant attributes) less important to the spiders when they come crawl the site?
Finally, what are the best META attributes and best method for constructing the meta portion of the code on a web page?
-
So I just asked this same question here because I couldn't find any answers from Mozzers on this topic. This was from 2 years ago. I've been finding conflicting advice on META order. It seems like best practice would be to have title before keywords. AM I wrong?
-
It doesn't matter for the main tags - title and description.
However this guy feels the position of the Content Type meta tag does matter, so you might want to consider that.
http://news.smartlabsoftware.com/2008/11/17/meta-tag-order-does-matter/
-
As long as you have the correct syntax and it is all in the of the document there is no negative or positive effect on the positioning of the META elements in regards to SEO.
As for the best META elements to include for an SEO benefit - that would be your title and description tags.
Hope this helped! - Kyle
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Okay to have additional attributes in canonical tag?
Hello! I'm helping a Client with a platform migration from an SEO standpoint. They are working to implement canonical tags, but I've noticed that each of the ones they are implementing are including a "data-rdm" attribute: data-rdm=""> I'm not sure the Client has a way to suppress this before the launch date. Do we think this will be an issue for Google?
Web Design | | PattyAMG1 -
Why is Google displaying meta descriptions for pages that are nowhere contained in said page metas?
Certain search keywords are pulling up incorrect page titles and meta descriptions for our site. I've looked through our code, and the text used by Google in the search results is nowhere found inside our site. I've also looked at previous iterations of our site from over a decade ago and still haven't found it. I then searched specifically for the exact phrased incorrect meta descriptions and found a long list of spammy sites linking to our domain with the exact, incorrect meta description. Is this why Google is displaying the incorrect data, and how do I get Google to use the meta descriptions from my actual site?
Web Design | | Closetstogo0 -
No cache meta tags - does it help Google get back and reindex faster?
I saw these meta tags on a site and am trying to figure out their benefit. These meta tags are on the home page, product pages, every page of the site. Will it cause search engine bots to come back and index pages faster? Will it cause slower page loading in browsers if nothing is cached? http-equiv="pragma" content="no-cache"/> http-equiv="cache-control" content="no-cache,no-store,must-revalidate"/> http-equiv="expires" content="0"/>
Web Design | | CFSSEO0 -
BWT Meta Language Missing?
For some reason, we do incredibly worse in Bing than we do in Google. In the SEO reporter tool, I saw this message:
Web Design | | KempRugeLawGroup
Use tag in the section of your page, where "ll-cc" stands for the culture code of the language and country/region the content applies to. Alternatively use the lang="ll-cc" attribute on either the or the <title> tag .:<br /><br />I'm guessing Bing wants to me to add USA and Eng to my site, but my questions are, 1. why isn't this an issue for google? 2. I have this error message for all my pages, so is there a sitewide WP plugin anyone would recommend?</span></p> <p><span>Thanks,</span></p> <p><span>Ruben</span></p></title>0 -
Google result showing old Meta Title / Description even though page view source shows new info.
Hey guys! I'm struggling with why Google is ignoring my Meta Title / Description. I made a pretty drastic change to both about a week ago and on the results it hasn't changed. I'm on first page with several keywords and I think this weird caching is hurting me on where I'm at on the page. Thoughts / Ideas?
Web Design | | curtis_williams0 -
Website URL Structures - Which does Google prefer or does it matter?
Which URL structure does google prefer..............OR DOES IT REALLY MATTER? Option A www.example.com/services/service#1 - this is the default that wordpress uses Option B www.example.com/service#1
Web Design | | webestate0 -
Does anyone think the <figcaption>attribute from HTML5 will have any influence for image search?</figcaption>
There is a <figure>element that is supposed to provide better descriptions of image on the web in HTML5 - do you think that will replace the importance of the "Alt" tag? Link to figcaption description </figure>
Web Design | | RankSurge2 -
Order of my products on page?
Hi, I read somewhere that Google reads a page in a certain way. All my product pages are listed (or most of them) in Alphabetical order. Now say I am targeting brands named Cruyff and Money Clothing, should I put all the Cruyff and Money products above everything else? See here for example... http://www.designerboutique-online.com/jackets/ They are in Alph order, except the sales items at the bottom. So would it be beneficial to do this? To put my targeted brands at the top of the page? And if not, is there anything I should be doing with the layout of the products to improve/help with SEO? Thanks Will
Web Design | | WillBlackburn0