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HTML Help: Dublin Core META Tags

I recently had a search engine optimization company email me saying that my pages were not optimized. Of course, they offered to optimize them for a hefty fee. They listed the need to add Dublin core meta tags as one example of what needs to be done. My question is, what are Dublin core meta tags and will they help my search engine ranking?
The short answer is, I don't use them and this site has outstanding search engine rankings.

The Dublin Core META Tags are a secondary meta tag set created by the Dublin Core Meta data Initiative (DCMI). DCMI is an organization dedicated to promoting the adoption of meta data standards using specialized vocabularies that enable more intelligent information discovery systems.

Got it?

What that basically means is that the DCMI created their own meta tags to better catalog specialized web content. Here's an example of a Dublin core meta tag:

<meta name="dc:title" content="Museum of 6th Century Artwork" />
At first glance, the Dublin Core meta tags may seem very similar to their regular meta tag counterparts. The difference is that the Dublin Core meta tags are characterized by meta data that conforms to a much stricter language standard.

Properly used, the Dublin Core meta tags require the use of standardized content identifiers from a specialized control vocabulary, which is a predefined list of keywords and descriptions maintained by a recognized standards organizations from different fields.

For example, the dc:subject meta tag normally contains categories selected from the U.S. Library of Congress Subject Headings. Contrast that with regular keyword meta tag content, which is often an ad hoc, free-flowing list of terms written by marketing specialists or do-it-yourself webmasters with the intent of optimizing page rankings at search engines, rather than accurately describing page content.

Because Dublin Core meta data content is to conform to recognized standards, it’s supposed to be much more reliable for cataloging than regular meta tag data. It’s also harder for the average webmaster to use because it requires an in-depth knowledge of the appropriate control vocabulary and how it relates to your content.

As a result, developing Dublin Core meta data is usually a job for archivists, librarians, and other content specialists. It should not be used willy-nilly for search engine optimization because that's not what it was designed for.

Even so, the Dublin core meta tags have been used and abused by pseudo-search engine experts for over a decade now. Because of this abuse, all real search engine experts agree they are totally ignored by search engines, with perhaps the exception of highly specialized search engines.

If this is the search engine optimation company's big selling point, save your money, it won't help. Another clue is that have had to resort to drumming up business by spamming you. If they knew their business well their site should be able to bring in business without the need to spam anyone.

If you really want to have an optmized website and are a do-it-yourself type, then get my ebooks, SEO for YOU and Industrial Strength Link Building.

This site enjoys lots of first page rankings at multiple search engines for hotly contested keywords. For example, check out these Google rankings from the day I wrote this web page...

Search Term Rank Competing Pages
web design tutorials #1 48,900,000
html tutorials #3 24,000,000
css tutorials #4 19,600,000
Those aren't crappy keywords that are easy to rank well for, those are excellent keywords for this site—and just look at how many competing pages there are! In all three cases my site outranks the W3C . . . that's the people who write the standards for web design!

Rankings like that are no accident—that is planning and execution of real search engine optimization. It's the kind of rankings most people only dream about...

...but why dream, check my specials page for the SEO Special, I often bundle these two products together and pass a substantial savings on to you.

SEO firms charge thousands of dollars plus monthly fees in the hundreds. You can learn to do it yourself from me for a one-time investment of less than a hundred bucks.

This concludes the

HTML Help about Dublin Core META Tags

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