Meta tag disputes

Useful Advice: Meta tag disputes

Meta Tags are present (hidden in the html) at the top of most web pages. They are used, amongst other things, to provide a description and/or keywords to Search Engines and Directories. The keywords tag is now largely ignored by the Search Engines due to frequent abuse. The Title and Description tags are crucial in getting a good listing in the major Search Engines such as Google.

Court action often involves Meta Tags in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) cases. There are certain basic principles which any competent SEO company should be following with regard to the content of Meta Tags. An easy example is that the information contained in the tags should be unique and relevant to every page on a Web site.

You may find that your competition have inserted your product or company name in their meta tags with a view to poaching some of your customers or potential customers. The best way to tackle this is to contact the offending company and ask them to remove the references to your tradenames. There may, however, be legitimate reasons why your trade names appear on their web site. Perhaps they are making a comparison between your product and theirs. The usual laws of business apply. Can you show they are making any untrue statements. In some cases these could be construed as "malicious falsehoods".

There is much more information regarding the legal implications surrounding meta tags on the excellent SearchEngineWatch web site.

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