>I have seen a post here advocating the use of <META HTTP-EQUIV=abstract
>CONTENT="..."> and have set up my pages to use it. Recently, while
>looking at altavista and infoseek I notice they used <META
>HTTP-EQUIV=description ...>. In fact, infoseek says that if description
>is used, they will display that in the results page.
That's pretty crazy. META HTTP-EQUIV is used to specify HTTP document headers.
"Description:" wasn't an HTTP header, last time I checked. InfoSeek
is violating standards here. However, if this was a conscious decision
on their part, it is rather interesting: it allows you to get your images,
sound bites, etc., indexed by sending them out with Description: headers.
>My question then is which should I use? Do all search engines that pay
>attention to stuff like this use description, or do some use abstract, or
>both?
If a search engine is willing to make this info available, the place to
find out is their WWW pages ...
>Edward.
-- Reinier Post reinpost@win.tue.nl