I've used a few of the free meta tag generators, I copy and paste the XHTML and HTML (trying both) code into a page and then run an analyser to see if they appear and nothing. Does it take time for them to publish ? My host provided zero help.

Any suggestions much appreciated.

It takes take time for the crawlers to rescan pages. Could be anywhere from 1-4 days with the homepage being the first to be updated. There is some prioritizing done by crawlers also based on previous history of a website and previous SEO position. Here is a good article on the mechanics - SEO Theory

It takes take time for the crawlers to rescan pages. Could be anywhere from 1-4 days with the homepage being the first to be updated. There is some prioritizing done by crawlers also based on previous history of a website and previous SEO position. Here is a good article on the mechanics - SEO Theory

Great article many thanks, so if I am reading it correctly the analysers take a few days to catch the updates after I enter the HTML code?

It takes take time for the crawlers to rescan pages. Could be anywhere from 1-4 days with the homepage being the first to be updated. There is some prioritizing done by crawlers also based on previous history of a website and previous SEO position. Here is a good article on the mechanics - SEO Theory

Great article many thanks, so if I am reading it correctly the analysers take a few days to catch the updates after I enter the HTML code?

That's correct. Spent a year doing SEO work on my commercial website and 2-3 days would be fairly normal. Can be faster if you are already in the crawlers priorities based on website history and standing.

Thanks I enjoyed the article also I never had much of an understanding of SEO.