Meta Tag Optimization – Day 22
August 16, 2008 by Antony
Back in the day, this was pretty much the only variable to “SEO” META Tag optimization. As search engines have progressed so have their algorithms. Over the transition meta tags hold very little value compared to before. Before search engines were not able to pick through the content and establish what the content was about. So we had to rely on setting up meta tags to tell the search engines what our site was ‘about’, or really what keywords we wanted to rank for.
This obviously wasn’t working out well when pornography websites were targeting high traffic keywords like, Dumbo, and Toy Story. There needed to be a change and a progression so to speak.
Today a good majority of search engines state that META tags don’t add any benefit, but can take away value if you don’t include them.
Which META Tags should you use?
For Google adding the Description Meta Tag won’t result in a boost in your search engine results pages, but it can possibly help with your click through ratio for that keyword. Sometimes, not all the time, Google will still use your META description tag for your results description on Google. So write a captivating description with the idea that it is going to be used by Google. Although don’t count on the description tag to add SERPs results, as Google states that it has no effect.
Yahoo states that they use the META Keyword Tag when it ranks pages and I think that Google does to, to a very limited extent. So still include them on your pages, because its better to be safe than sorry! Right?
Example of META Tags
<HTML><HEAD>
<TITLE>Bass Fishing</TITLE>
<meta name=”description” content=”The ultimate Bass Fishing resource, learn how to get 10 lb bass every time!”
<meta name=”keywords” content=”Bass Fishing”>
</HEAD>
</BODY>
The Title
<TITLE>Bass Fishing</TITLE>
Hands down one of the most important elements of the on page optimization. Some people may refer to this as a meta tag, but it isn’t. I’ve dedicated a full day to describing the META tag and it can be found in Day 21’s posting. The title needs to include 1 or at most 2-3 keywords that are the most important phrase of that page. Remember do not go over the top adding keywords as most search engines will penalize you for doing this.
The Description META Tag
<meta name=”description” content=”The ultimate Bass Fishing resource, learn how to get 10 lb bass every time!”>
As described earlier, Google does not weigh the description in any special way. They also don’t guarantee that they will use it for the description of your website in the search results. Sometimes they just take a snip-it of text from the page and call it a day. Be descriptive and captivating and think like your potential reader! That way you can convert clicks from the results pages of search engines.
The Keywords META Tag
<meta name=”keywords” content=”Bass Fishing”>
Google states that the Keyword tag adds no value what so ever to their results, other search engines say that it does help slightly. The easiest way to create your keyword meta tag is to take your title tag and eliminate anything that isn’t needed. Don’t add anymore than 10 keywords to this though.
Robots META Tag
There are many other META tags but no one uses them anymore and they are practically prehistoric in todays internet. The most important one that you need sometimes is known as the Robots META Tag, take a look at the example below.
<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex,nofollow”>
This is used to notify search engine spiders/robots to not access or access a certain page. This specific example expressed above is used to notify search engines not to index and follow a certain page. These are typically sensitive pages that are for members only or other information you don’t want people having access to from search engines. Keep in mind that ‘bad’/blackhat spiders (ones that search the net for email addresses) don’t adhere to this protocol so don’t expect complete security as a result.
Other commands are as follows:
<meta name=”robots” content=”index,follow”> Index the page and follow all links from it. If this is your goal then you can leave this tag out as that is what it is set for as default.
<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex,follow”> Don’t cache/index the website, but follow the links found on the page. This is typical of a black hatter as they are trying to cloak their shady techniques from the search engines.
<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex,nofollow”> Don’t index and don’t follow any of the pages. Used for member pages and other ‘higher’ priority material.
[tags]meta tag optimization, seo meta tag, search engine optimization meta tag, seo techniques[/tags]
[…] Original post by unknown […]