The HTML title tag isn't really a meta tag, but it's worth discussing in relation to them. Whatever text you place in the title tag (between the

portions as shown in the example) will appear in the reverse bar of someone's browser when they view the web page. For instance, within the title tag of this page that you are reading is this text:

How To Use HTML Meta Tags

If you look at the reverse bar in your browser, then you should see that text being used, similar to this:

Some browsers also supplement whatever you put in the title tag by adding their own name, as you can see Microsoft's Internet Explorer doing in the picture above.

The title tag is also used as the words to describe your page when someone adds it to their "Favorites" or "Bookmarks" lists. 

How did that little Search Engine Watch logo also show up? Everyone always asks. The article below provides more help:

Creating Your Own Favicon.ico Icon For IE5
Web Developer's Journal, March 7, 2000
http://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/articles/favicon.html

But what about search engines! The title tag is crucial for them. The text you use in the title tag is one of the most important factors in how a search engine may decide to rank your web page (see the Search Engine Placement Tips section for more details). In addition, all major crawlers will use the text of your title tag as the text they use for the title of your page in your listings.

For example, this is how Teoma lists the page you are reading:

You can see that the text "How To Use HTML Meta Tags" is used as the hyperlinked title of this page's listed in Teoma's results.

In review, think about the key terms you'd like your page to be found for in crawler-based search engines, then incorporate those terms into your title tag in a short, descriptive fashion. That text will then be used as your title in crawler-based search engines, as well as the title in bookmarks and in browser reverse bars.

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