SEO Tycoon

**ebangla** · 05-01-2006, 02:17 PM

Does Search engines give any value to Meta tags like keywords, descriptions any more???
Whci search engines gives them value and which search engines doesn't ???

**seohr** · 05-01-2006, 03:36 PM

Quote:

Does Search engines give any value to Meta tags like keywords, descriptions any more???

Probably none, or very little. But SE use meta tags, they use meta description very often for serps.

**vangogh** · 05-02-2006, 12:54 AM

The major search engines ignore meta keywords and many seo experts have stopped using them. The meta description has a use since it may be what shows under your link when your page is found in a search engine. I think Yahoo likes them more than the other search engines. I think any seo benefit if it exists will be minor at best. Meta tags are just too easy to spam.

You should write good meta descriptions, but I wouldn't worry about meta keywords at all.

**seohr** · 05-02-2006, 05:07 AM

You can use meta keywords tag, thera are some local search engine or smaller engines that use this, maybe you get click or two

.

**vangogh** · 05-02-2006, 03:37 PM

You're right there are some smaller known search engines that will still look at the meta keyword. It's why I always preface my statement about them by saying the major search engines ignore them. I don't think it's worth agonizing though over a few clicks a day. Not that you should ignore any visits to your site, but it's not worth spending more than a few minutes on meta keywords.

I'm not saying don't use the meta keywords. They won't hurt you unless you use them to stuff keywords, but realistically they're not going to do much to help and the time spent on them could be better spent getting a few more links to your site.

**kline11** · 05-02-2006, 05:08 PM

Description a little, keywords not at all.

**ebangla** · 05-03-2006, 01:04 PM

If they dont look at the meta tags how they rank or list my pages or beeter to say on what basis they index it in search results?????????

**vangogh** · 05-03-2006, 03:20 PM

There are a lot of different factors that go into to determining what pages a search engine will display to a given search query. SEOmoz does a good job of listing most of them in the article Search Engine Ranking Factors.

**kline11** · 05-03-2006, 04:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ebangla

If they dont look at the meta tags how they rank or list my pages or beeter to say on what basis they index it in search results?????????

Like vangogh said, there are many factors, like body text, link anchor text, alt tags, etc.

**chrishirst** · 05-04-2006, 05:32 PM

<pedantic>
alt attributes
</pedantic>

**SEOclown** · 01:02 AM

I think they list them good but i dont agree in which they are listed. I think they differ for each search engine.

For example they say the 1. Title tag is most important, i dont agree with this. I think the number 2 factor is most important which is anchor text of links.
For google anyway i believe it to be this way. Because for a specific keyword phrase the #1 site listed in google doesnt have the keywords in the title tag or anything close for that matter.

To prove this you can simply goto google and search for "the four required words" with quotes and the #1 site doesnt seem to have any of those words in the title tag.

So thats why i disagree.

Any thoughts?

**SEOclown** · 01:00 AM

Vangoh i could be wrong but doesnt Inktomi and AltaVista read meta tags?

And doesnt inktomi spider for Yahoo?

**chrishirst** · 05-07-2006, 07:00 AM

Not quite,

Yahoo own Inktomi and Altavista so the results are the same.
Yahoo do read the meta keywords tag but use it as a kind of checksum role for the page rather than a major ranking element.

The Yahoo crawler is called "Slurp" as was the Inktomi crawler so many stats packages call Slurp "Inktomi crawler"

**vangogh** · 05-07-2006, 02:35 PM

I agree with Chris. I get the feeling that Yahoo pays a litte more attention to the meta description though I have no proof. Just a feeling. I may have a little experiment in the near future to test that feeling a bit, though I don't expect it to be a major impact of any kind.

You know I've never actually looked at the order the ranking factors at SEOmoz. I think both title and links are very important and the relative importance of each mostly depends on how competitive the keyword is and how many links the sites competing for those keywrods have. You mostly need to have a similar amount of links as your competition does, so if they have a lot then yeah the links will be more important. If they don't have many then title alone can often get you ranked ahead of them.

**SEOclown** · 05-07-2006, 06:38 PM

Hmmm.

I just did a search on both AltaVista and Yahoo and i got different results.

Yahoo does own Inktomi and altavista, but i think Inktomi just spiders the web and altavista and yahoo pull from the same index database, but displaying their own unque results based on their algorithms, which i dont think are the same. Its called "Inktomi Slurp" in my stats when i see it.

The thing was, does the tags get read...and if they get read it has to be for a reason even if its the smallest like a checksum role like you said.

Vangogh you maybe right about the description but the original point was that you said keywords arent read by any major search engines. I beleive Yahoo is a major search engine that reads the meta keywords tag, like chris said.

Now noone can say for sure how much of a role the keyword meta tags play, but if it doesnt hurt and can only help i would suggest to anyone to use FULL meta tags, and use them properly without keyword stuffing.

With search engines changing algos all the time, it is possible for them to start reading keyword tags more, especially if they are under the impression that no one thinks they do anything.

You never know, they could be a factor but just outweighed on competetive keyword terms, and they might help just enough in non-competeitive secondary keyword terms. So why take a chance and take away potential traffic from yourself. It only takes a few minutes to write out some meta tags, and if that works out to an extra few visitors a month than to me it seems it is well worth it.

In my opinion use them everytime, theres no reason not to and if you are taking your time and money to invest in a website, than really, whats 5 minutes.

**vangogh** · 01:57 AM

I've never said not to use them. I only say not to spend a lot of time with them. They really won't have much if any affect on where your web pages rank. What I said originally was the major search engines ignore them and if I wasn't clear I was only meaning it as a ranking factor. And I still stand by that. Feel free to spend as much time as you want adding them. I don't think you'll see a difference one way or the other.

The only difference I think they really make is if you stuff them with keywords, though in that case I think the effect won't be the one you want.

The most respected names in the seo industry aren't using them any more and generally agree they have no affect on ranking. Again I'm not saying don't use them. There are definitely smaller search engines that still use them. It's just not worth spending more than a few minutes on them across your entire site. The one extra backlink you can get in that time will have more impact.

ebangla's original question was do the search engines give value to meta keywords and meta descriptions. I think we're all pretty much in agreement here about the meta description. As for the meta keywords they really don't give them any value. They may read them, but that doesn't mean they give them a value or that they will do anything to help improve your rank.