Well IMO it completely depends on which search engine you want to focus. There are several other search engines that still look for meta tags.If you are only focused on Google then it's totally a different story.

Originally Posted by Danny Lawson

There are several other search engines that still look for meta tags.

That's interesting. Which ones are they?

Well Google is the #1 focus because it's the #1 search people use, probably by 2:1 or even 3:1. InfoSeek and DogPile don't seem worth the time.

Google basically concentrates on website content. But dont ignore the meta tags as google algorithm keeps on changing. Some time it considers the meta description.

On images I always put the ALT tag and the TITLE tag. On links I always use the TITLE tag.

There is NO SUCH THING as alt & title tags for images or title tags for links.

They are attributes

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

But I haven't created a single "description" or "keyword" tag on any of my pages. Is there any reason to do so? I get the impression search engines have been ignoring them since the 1990s.

You are kind of correct. Meta Description and keyword are the less important factors affecting search-worthiness. However, here is my guess (wild?):

1) If your keywords do not get used in the body, it is meaningless.
2) Value of meta Description is greater than that of keywords.

SE robots scans individual pages from top to buttom and sometime if our page used excessive scripting codes like CSS, Java Script, words or languages that robot cannot understand it stop. Its still important to have our meta tags on top and separates java script, CSS and other from html pages

Originally Posted by BruceWayne

SE robots scans individual pages from top to buttom and sometime if our page used excessive scripting codes like CSS, Java Script, words or languages that robot cannot understand it stop. Its still important to have our meta tags on top and separates java script, CSS and other from html pages

Javascript or CSS on the page makes no difference. Bots just ignore it.
They don't care about styling and they have no way of executing javascript.

When a bot looks at a page they see in in plain text, Like what we see when we view source, They remove what they need (the text), Apply an algorithm to it and ignore the rest.

(though some people have recently reported google requesting CSS files)

Regarding Meta Descriptions. I did some SEO for a website selling Lobster. WE ranked number one on Google for "5 pound lobster" with NO META TAGS on that page.

Some knucklehead suggested to the boss that he have me put meta tags on there, so I did. In a couple of days we went to page 9. After saying "I told you so", I removed them. 3 Days later back to spot one.

Sometimes if you have no meta description they;ll take the relevant content of your page and put that in there, which is better.

Yahoo & MSN are different, but I don't really care about them. I get the most (by far) hits from Google, then MSN and lastly Yahoo. The funny thing is, I do pay per clicks with only Yahoo and they are last.

I honestly feel Yahoo is a better search engine, but people don't realize that.

Meta descriptions and meta keywords matter from a usability standpoint. In order for screen readers to better understand your page, meta data must be there especially if one is trying to pass priority checkpoint 3 (web accessibly standards).

I have a pretty large directory and not all of the categories had meta descriptions on the pages. Those pages were doing fine for a number of years, and then suddenly without warning they started moving to supplemental results. I hadn't lost any PR, or backlinks, hadn't changed anything -- so couldn't figure out what the problem was.

I did some researching on my own pages, and found that the pages with meta descriptions were fine, and the ones lacking them, were in supplemental. I then added meta descriptions to those pages and within the following 2 index updates, all of the pages had moved back to the regular index.

I know of another directory that used the same meta description on all of their pages sitewide and it too went into supplemental. Then they added individual meta descriptions for each page, and the pages came out of supplemental.

IMO, Google may or may not consider the meta description of a page within their algorithm, but they seem to favor pages that are semantically correct.

There's really no reason *not* to use meta descriptions. If you have something at your disposal that may help people find your pages, or help screen readers understand them, why not use them for their intended purposes?

Originally Posted by WebSavvy

Meta descriptions and meta keywords matter from a usability standpoint. In order for screen readers to better understand your page, meta data must be there especially if one is trying to pass priority checkpoint 3 (web accessibly standards).

I have a pretty large directory and not all of the categories had meta descriptions on the pages. Those pages were doing fine for a number of years, and then suddenly without warning they started moving to supplemental results. I hadn't lost any PR, or backlinks, hadn't changed anything -- so couldn't figure out what the problem was.

I did some researching on my own pages, and found that the pages with meta descriptions were fine, and the ones lacking them, were in supplemental. I then added meta descriptions to those pages and within the following 2 index updates, all of the pages had moved back to the regular index.

I know of another directory that used the same meta description on all of their pages sitewide and it too went into supplemental. Then they added individual meta descriptions for each page, and the pages came out of supplemental.

IMO, Google may or may not consider the meta description of a page within their algorithm, but they seem to favor pages that are semantically correct.

There's really no reason *not* to use meta descriptions. If you have something at your disposal that may help people find your pages, or help screen readers understand them, why not use them for their intended purposes?

Great article! I just feel we should let a sleeping dog lie. As I said we were number one on that term for Google, so why would anyone want to further tweak a page that's number one? Once I get all the products up there I study my logs carefully to see what search phrases people are using to find me. Then, I concern myself with the ones they are not finding me with.

I look at the title, content, etc... If I feel it's sufficient I'll mess around with the meta tags.

Originally Posted by Visio

The title tag has some good weight and the description tag is crucial as to whether searchers click your listing. many top ranked sites aren't running at full potential because their site descriptions suck. Right a descriptive, accurate and killing description. You will see your traffic increase just from phrases you already hold. The keyword tag is useless and does not need to be used.

Hey Visio. Good to see you here too. I agree...that's a good explanation.

you will need a description and title meta tag. this will help you in your search results. yes you need them very much so. other tags are not needed so much.

The title is NOT a meta element