Web authoring tools and meta tagging of page descriptions and keywords

Purpose – To determine the effect of web page editing tools on inclusion and page specificity of meta tagged descriptions and keywords. Design/methodology/approach – Using customized software with Yahoo!'s random page service, data from 2,048 URLs were logged. Generator identification was cross‐tabulated with presence and length of both descriptions and keywords. A second analysis on pages on geocities.com was performed using URLs from Altavista. Local links from a sample of the Yahoo! set were followed and linked‐to pages were examined for presence of description or keywords and whether these differed from those on the linking pages. Findings – The Yahoo! set showed generally no significant difference in inclusion of descriptions and keywords between generator‐identifying and other pages. The geocities.com set did show a significant difference for both keywords and descriptions. Exact repetition of descriptions or keywords between pages on the same site did not generally correlate significantly with identified generators. Research limitations/implications – Various other tools may have been used to create both generator‐identifying and other pages. A third factor, author level, is probably influencing both choice of authoring tool and decision to include description and keywords. How well keywords and descriptions actually fit the pages was not examined. Further research might examine other differences between the two sets. Practical implications – Assistance with keywords and descriptions varies widely among web site editing packages, but is not a major selection criterion. Originality/value – The hypothetical relationships had not previously been tested.