Geo Meta Tags For Target Locations SEO
HTML Geo-Tag Format
- All geo-tags share the following characteristics:
- The HTML page's head section (between head> and /head>) is where you'll find the geo-tags.
- So-called "geo-tags" begin with the preposition "meta" since they are actually a type of HTML meta-tag.
- The syntax of geo-tags is similar to that of other meta-tags in that it consists of a name (name="...") and an associated value (content="...").
- Use small letters each identifier (meta, name, and content) and make sure to end each meta-tag with a closing slash for XHTML compliance. Neither is required when working with basic HTML.
Geo-Tag: "geo.position"
Geographic latitude is listed first in the geo.position tag's content field, followed by the longitude. The required delimiter between the two values is a semicolon (;). A dot (.) and not a comma (,) must be used as the decimal separator. Based on the WGS-84 (World Geodetic System 1984) coordinate system, the values are written in standard decimal format rather than angular degree, minute, and second notation. A minus sign (-) must precede latitudes that are south of the equator, as well as longitudes that are west of Greenwich. Latitudes in the northern hemisphere or longitudes east of the prime meridian preceded by a plus sign "+" are syntactically correct but not common usage.
The user may choose the precision of their decimal places at will. By removing digits from the right side of the latitude and longitude values, you can limit the precision of the geo.position item and so increase your privacy. The Geo-Tag-Generator helps with this process.
Separated from the longitude by a second comma, an optional height value (in meters) may also be provided. Do not include the "m" for meter in the value. A height declaration, however, has been unusual so far.
Geo-Tag: "geo.region"
There are two components to the geo.region tag: the nation code and the region code. A hyphen "-" (or, more rarely, an underscore "_") serves as the delimiter between the two. No spaces should be added before or after the hyphen. For nations without a regional code, including it is entirely discretionary. However, if the region code is dropped as well, the hyphen must be removed, leaving only the single country code.
ISO standard "ISO 3166-1" stipulates that country codes be always two capital letters. Such as "GB" for the United Kingdom, "US" for the United States, or "AT" for Austria.
As defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), "ISO 3166-2" region codes consist of one to three characters, such as "GLS" for Gloucestershire (UK), "CA" for California (USA), and "7" for Tirol (Austria).
To use an unknown area code like "DE-Bayern" is not standard practice, even though it is commonly viewed as such. "DE-BY" is the only acceptable spelling.
Geo-Tag: "geo.placename"
Simply put, the geo.placename tag consists simply the name of the location itself. It's usually your hometown or the closest major city. Specifications like "country" or "region" should be avoided because they are already part of the geo.region tag. They should not be brought up twice. In contrast, if there are other cities with the same name, such "Garching a der Alz" and "Garching bei München," you need include more specifics. Avoid using a personal description like "Place of my homepage" or a company name in place of a popular geographical place name.
To avoid having to use the HTML entity replacements for national special characters like the German umlauts "" and "Ü," you should code your place name using the same character set (ISO-8859-1, UTF-8) as you specified in your HTML header.
"ICBM" Tag
The geo.position identifier has a popular predecessor in the ICBM tag (for: intercontinental ballistic missile). The format is nearly identical to the geo.position tag, with the exception that a comma rather than a semicolon denotes the separation between latitude and longitude. If both the ICBM and geo.position tags are used, which makes perfect sense, then the coordinates should match.