Hands up if you believe that Google doesn't use META tags. According to thousands of people, Google doesn't use them at all! In my opinion, they are sometimes more important than the content itself.

Take my website (Playground Hunt) for example. I have meta tags (description and keywords) on all of my pages. When you type 'playgroundhunt.com' into google, it displays the description, and none of the content.

This is sometimes a real pain! What do you guys think??? Do you have any suggestions to avoid this happening???

Google and the other search engines read your meta description. I'm not sure where you've seen that they don't, but they absolutely do read them. They sometimes use your meta description when showing your result. They may also use snippets of text from your page or your description from the DMOZ if you're listed there. it depends on the keywords chosen. Since your search is for your domain name that was probably the best option.

When people say meta tags aren't important they're generally referring to the meta keywords tag which does nothing to improve where you rank.

Also with the meta description it's a very different thing to show the text under your link in results and use that text to help rank your page. It's possible search engines use your meta description in some way when deciding what pages to rank. It's likely not enough to make any difference. I think that having unique meta descriptions can help prevent your pages from being seen as duplicate, but even then it's not the biggest determining factor.

Just out of curiosity why do you think it's a pain to have your description show? Most people would prefer to have their own description show instead of some random snippets. There's a very easy solution though if you don't want Google reading your meta tags. Don't use them. The only reason to use them is so a search engine can read them so if you don't want them read don't use them. I do suggest you use the meta description though.

Meta tags will never be more important than content for anything. That really doesn't make any sense.

The description always comes first, if you don't use it, then the core text will show up, at least that is what happens to me.

The description doesn't always come first. It's one option that Google will use when presenting a snippet under your link. Which option they use seems to be based on the words in the query used.

If Google thinks your description is the best match then that's what they'll show. If they think some random pieces of text from your age are the best match then that's what they'll show.

and if you have a listing in the Google copy of the ODP directory, your title and text snippet could come from there.
And you don't want that to happen.

Google usually show the most relevant text in snippet (and it's no matter where text had been placed(description, content of the page or ODP))

Meta keywords - is not impotant for ranking in Google

Regards

If your meta data doesn't match your content it can have an adverse effect on your rankings, something to be aware of if your not paying much attention to meta data

Vangogh is correct

Google still give importnace to Meta Description not keywords but yes description.

The most important your title tag and content on the page which match to user query.

I believe meta description is important, that is why we are using them for our site to get faster indexed in google.

Originally Posted by dee_el07

I believe meta description is important, that is why we are using them for our site to get faster indexed in google.

You will be disappointed then. Meta descriptions have absolutely no influence on speed of indexing.

Originally Posted by chrishirst

and if you have a listing in the Google copy of the ODP directory, your title and text snippet could come from there.
And you don't want that to happen.

True Chris, and I want to add, if you add this meta tag Google won't use ODP data:
<meta name="robots" content="noodp">

Can we all agree...
Title Tag: YES
Description Meta Tag: YES
Keywords Meta Tag: NO

Originally Posted by kline11

Can we all agree...
Title Tag: YES
Description Meta Tag: YES
Keywords Meta Tag: NO

Speaking for myself, I agree...

But I think it's more than wishful thinking to expect all of us to agree on anything, let alone the value of meta tags.

An interesting point is that a meta keywords tag can tip your hand to your competitors.

Forrest that's why a lot of people don't want to use them. Why make it easy for your competitors to see what keywords you want to rank for. They can still find out by looking at the page and the site, but why make it easy for them.

meta description plays very big role in seo

I found out that it DOES matter what your META tags say..........

If you don't really pay attention and VARY the tag, then I have found that the site does poorly and supplemental results usually results for the Big G......

Kinda makes sense, they want everything to be relevant to each other.......

Again, many may have experienced other results, but those have been mine.

Jack

I have a hard time believing that varying your meta description kept you out of the supplemental index. I really can't see why you would want to vary them at all other then to test which might give you a better click through. If that's what you mean by varying then it's all good.

I think your meta description will have a minimal role in how your pages rank, though I think it is important to have a unique meta description on every page. I suspect (just suspicion, no proof) that Yahoo wants to see unique meta descriptions and failing to have them may affect ranking.

In general I think meta descriptions are best to be used to help convince someone to click on your link in the results should the description end up being the snippet that's displayed. I don't believe that they make much if any difference in where your page will rank.


They're just too easy to spam to give them much weight in the algorithms.