Hello,

I have a couple of quick questions about adding meta-tag data to the headers of pages.  I saw an earlier post that explained I should add the following to the header of each page (under settings) to set the date of the page.

< meta name="date" content="2009-09-15"/>

I am using GSiteCrawler to develop a site map.  They strongly suggest adding a date meta-tag for SEO.  If I understand their instructions correctly, they suggest using multiple tags for the date.  I just finished adding the following three code to about 30 pages:

< meta name="date" content="2009-09-15"/>
< meta name="dc.date.created" content="2009-09-15">
< meta name="dc.date.modified" content="2009-10-01">

Question #1: Is this code correct? 

Question #2: After adding the code I noticed I forgot to have the trailing slash / at the end of the second and third tags.  Does that matter?  Do I need to go back and add the slash back in?

Question #3: Each of the three tags above are on separate lines (have a line break between them.  Is this OK or should it be one long stream like the following:

< meta name="date" content="2009-09-15"/>< meta name="dc.date.created" content="2009-09-15">< meta name="dc.date.modified" content="2009-10-01">

Thanks!
Chip

I don't know if the advice is correct or not. But ...

1. You need to have the / to properly close the tag. If you run the page through a validator, that will generate an error.
2. The tags don't need to be on different line. Lines aren't significant in HTML, unless you are a person trying to read a page.

Thank you Joseph for such a quick reply! Sometimes when I post on this site I feel like I have someone working in the next office over answering the question. I will go back and add the / to close the tag. I will also put everything on one line to make it cleaner.

When you say you are not sure about the advice, does this mean you would suggest using different date meta tag code?

You mentioned running the code through a validator. Can you recommend the easiest way for a novice to do this? I suspect that I may have many "open tags" in my Text/HTML modules (such as < br> instead of < br/>.

Isn't cleaning up the code important for SEO?

When it comes to SEO and DotNetNuke, I listen to Tom Kraak at Seablick.com.  Check out his "cheat sheet."  I've never heard Tom mention using date related meta tags, that's why I made the comment.

For validation, check out validator.w3.org.  If you use the Web Developers Toolbar, there is a tool to submit a page for validation from your browser.
 
 

Hi Joseph,

I see I have some work to do. The validator found 195 errors and 10 warnings on my home page! The first 5 errors had to do with the missing / from my date meta-tags. When I added the / the errors went away.

It looks like many of the errors have to do with missing / in my HTML code. I am going to see if the HTMLtidy can help me clean it up. Thanks again!
Chip

I use the date metatag as it's recommended by the team at GSiteCrawler, we did an interview with them explaining why here if you are interested:

Google Sitemaps
with John Mueller (23 mins)

I have only used the date metatag and not the others.

For further information regarding the essential date metatag that is mentioned in the interview, visit:
http://gsitecrawler.com/articles/me...g-date.asp