Meta Tags

You notice how often people in SEO forums ask about met tags? Or how many free articles promise to tell you the Top 10 Secrets of Meta Tag Mastery?

If you somehow find yourself here hoping to learn the dark arts of the meta tag: don’t worry abou them.

Yahoo! says it still looks at the keywords meta tag. Put a few in. Don’t try spammy keyword stuffing. Even the small search engines have good engineers. They’ll catch you. Most likely they won’t give a damn. If they do care the only response would be to punish your site.

Google may not use the description meta tag in determining a page’s relevance but sometimes it will display it. Having looked at many of my sites on Google I’ve never been able to discern the logic. (As all viewers of the first Star Trek series know computer logic can be quirky by human standards.)

When that description appears in your listing it may be the deciding factor in whether or not the search engine user clicks and comes to your site. You want that visit don’t you?

He can see:

Yoyos, everything about yoyos, yoyo secrets, all kinds of yoyos, everything you need to know about yoyos, cheapest yoyos, best yoyos …

Or:

I’ve loved yoyos ever since I was a boy and thought I’d share some of what I’ve learned about them.

Here in the 21st century we’re advertising savvy enough to know the first example is just spam. And sentimental enough to be curious about the writer of the second example.

For the long-term, natural behavior will give you better results.

The other meta tags are either worthless, e.g,. the search engine will set visit your site according to its own schedule. Or specialized: do you need to keep younger web surfers away?

So quite worrying about meta tags. Put in something useful and then get to work on more important aspects of your website.

Originally posted 2005-10-11 14:26:43. Republished by Old Post Promoter

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