[dougmays]

i know google and yahoo do a pretty good job indexing sites. so is anyone still using the meta name tag? i'm taking over designing a site for a friend and i was curious about his google ranking so i searched for it. i found it at number 4 when i typed in th actual name. But the name of the site starts with "three" so i switched it around and searched for it using the name, but with the number 3 instead of the words. It wasn't anywhere on the first query. any suggetions?

[Dusteh]

I think they still apply for keywords - as long as they match words in your content. Look at it this way, what harm can it do to include them?

Definately apply for descriptions.

[pgo]

Meta keywords do very little if anything anymore.

Meta descriptions are useful as they'll show up in search results.

[bambuki]

the page title and meta description are one of the most important ! This is the first thing that checked and shown by the search engines

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[Tom]

They are still used. But they aren't factored in as much as they used to be. Now you have a bunch more things that get factored together to get you a good ranking like link popularity and such.

[hawken]

no

[Dusteh]

Descriptions are the things that show up in google... you should at least have one of those.

Although saying that, I just realised I haven't bothered with anything but the title on my own site either. Ho hum.

[Larixk]

wow sounds great, a site with nothing but a title. Is that Web 3.0 or something?

[Limbo]

Do it - There are some search engines that index using meta data as a filter.

And the decritopns tag is a must - bewarned though, recent supplimental Google results have been blamed on pages with Identical Meta Data.

[hipukritus]

i think no

[weldo]

you should include keywords and descriptions - if only for the sake of page quality.

[sjd]

you should include keywords and descriptions - if only for the sake of page quality

Use the html as it's intended, regardless of how search engines index. Search engines will use any of the data they think will be useful in improving the quality of their searches. Besides, you never know what kind of web service will index your site nor how they'll use it. Good services, including search engines, will follow the specs to determine where to find data.

[skyrocket]

I don't know for sure but there's been a fair bit of noise on the SEO forums about whether meta tags are starting to become relevant again. I agree it certainly can't hurt to keep using them - certainly the meta description. The keywords tag is interesting - does anyone else see them coming back in as a relevant factor...?

[hawken]

SEOs widely agree that the signals that influence a page's rankings include:
Keywords in the title tag.
Keywords in links pointing to the page.
Keywords appearing in visible text.
Link popularity (PageRank for Google) of the page.

(from wikipedia)

[weldo]

Originally Posted by skyrocket

I don't know for sure but there's been a fair bit of noise on the SEO forums about whether meta tags are starting to become relevant again. I agree it certainly can't hurt to keep using them - certainly the meta description. The keywords tag is interesting - does anyone else see them coming back in as a relevant factor...?

the reason they became unpopular with SEs in the first place is because they are totally open to abuse.

having "girls,aloud,girls aloud,pop,music,x factor,celebrity," in the keyword tags would suggest that the page is about Girls Aloud - when the page could actually be about something completely different, disturbing and sinister .... hence - they fell out of favour with SEs

I can't see them ever being anything other than indicitive.

[pgo]

The real question is, what's better:

<meta name="keywords" content="girls aloud, pop music, blah">

or

<meta name="keywords" content="girls, aloud, pop, music, blah">

I've always wondered that. My logical vote goes for option 2 since it covers both word combinations and individual words. Of course it may lessen the relevance of phrases (which you should be targeting, really)...

[stickmus]

why not

<meta name="keywords" content="girls, aloud, girls aloud, pop, music, shite">

[pgo]

Why not indeed. It's a minor thing I've just always wondered if there was any real difference.

[Dusteh]

Same here, i've always plumped for both;

girls, aloud, girls aloud,

[Limbo]

I do the latter too. Makes sense, and as stated, the sum of all the parts...