I am always on the watch for new meta tags that are being tested by search engines. I like to be an early embracer of new technology. If you are unsure of what meta tags are in common place use right now, here is a great primer and list for you to consider using on your website.
Two new meta tags that I am watching and just getting ready to implement on my own site are two that Google released recently mainly for use on Google News. They are syndication-source and original-source. These two tags inserted in your source code in the head tag allow you to notify search engines that you are the creator of content on your website. You can read more information about both in this interesting article. Why not just use the canonical tag? Well, Google says it best and here is the quote:
“We felt the options currently in existence [the canonical tag] addressed different use cases and were insufficient to achieve our goals. The more accurate metadata that’s out there on the web, the better the web will be.”
Google is pretty clear that they are just using these new tags for Google News right now, but if you are a unique informational content author such as myself, it is a good thing to make your content as the originator so that scraper sites that steal your content will not get credit for your hard work. Google does say that they are evaluating the wider use of these meta tags, but has not embraced them for you use in their regular index.
Here is how you would actually use the tag in your head tag code:
meta name=”original-source” content=”http://www.mccordweb.com.com/weblogs/2011/04/23/watching-new-meta-tags”
I personally feel that I will most likely use both to just cover all bases, but remember these tags are not being widely used right now by Google’s index. Will they use it? Possibly, but I am willing to try anything to tag my content as my own.