: Meta attribute, alternatives for SEO optimization I'm working on a web-site that I need to Search Engine Optimize for multiple-languages. I need to provide language specific keywords targeting

@Ann8826881

The suggestion doesn’t make sense. You can’t specify meta-keywords in an HTTP header. (Only meta elements with an http-equiv instead of a name attribute can alternatively be specified with HTTP headers.)

It’s also not true that you would need CGI for sending an HTTP header. This could be achieved directly within your server configuration, too (for example, mod_headers for Apache).
And there’s nothing "shady" about CGI at all; many sites use PHP, Python etc. to generate/process documents and set HTTP headers.

So, that said:

If you want to use meta-keywords (ignoring the discussion about its usefulness here), simply use it.

If you want to specify the keywords in different languages on the same document, simply add several meta-keywords elements with the lang attribute:

<!-- on the English page, e.g., with 'lang="en"' on the 'html' element -->
<meta name="keywords" content="…"> <!-- using the default language as specified on 'html' or 'head' -->
<meta name="keywords" lang="de" content="…"> <!-- German keywords -->
<meta name="keywords" lang="fr" content="…"> <!-- French keywords -->


But if you have translated documents, you’d typically only include meta-keywords in the respective language.

Linking to translations, as you know, can be achieved by using the link element with the alternate link type and the hreflang attribute:

<link href="/de/" rel="alternate" hreflang="de">


Example

So for a site in English and German, you might want to include this on the English page:

<!-- lang="en" -->
<meta name="keywords" content="…"> <!-- English keywords -->
<link href="/de/" rel="alternate" hreflang="de">


and this on the German page:

<!-- lang="de" -->
<meta name="keywords" content="…"> <!-- German keywords -->
<link href="/en/" rel="alternate" hreflang="en">

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