Adding metadata to web pages

Please note: this is a temporary test document for use in internal testing only.

1. Title

• This is a required field as web pages must have a title. It's a critical field as it is the most important element for ranking pages higher in the University's internal search engine; external search engines such as Google also use it for indexing pages.

• When you create or edit a web page, the title field is the first box you see, so just ensure you enter a sensible, clear title that describes the page. It should make sense out of context as this will be what appears in search results lists. Don't go over 80 characters.

2. Description

After the title field, you'll see a text entry box with the heading “Body (edit summary)”.

Click this "edit summary" link and you'll get a new box where you can enter your summary. It's up to you whether you write the main page contents or the summary first, as long as they correspond with each other.

The summary is also known as the description field, and this content is also a key field in indexing the page. Furthermore, this is what appears below the page title in a search results list, so it should be a clear and concise summary of the content of this specific page. Keep it to under 200 characters or 25 words.

You may notice that in Drupal, if you leave the summary box blank, the start of the full text will be used as the page description instead. You might find this is suitable for you, if your page starts with a short paragraph summarising what that page is about, but be aware that it often isn't appropriate (e.g. when a page starts with bullet points or a more abstract introduction).

3. Keywords

• Finally, add the necessary keywords. Again, these are important for search engines to index the page and rank it more highly. Here it is quality not quantity, but you should aim for at least five keywords describing key concepts in the page. Try to make sure they're words that distinguish it from other pages. See our advice on [[how to choose keywords]] for further help.

• To add keywords, go to the section containing further options and choose "meta tags". You'll then see a field where you can enter your keywords, comma-separated.

Test re indexing of non-title text

Alphabetical order

University document policy