keywords in meta tag

[tomecki]

Is it better to have a small amount of keywords in meta tag or the more the better?

[DangerMouse]

I think the rule of thumb is no more than 255 characters...

Although, I don't think it really hurts to put more in - Put the important ones first.

[Elee]

I thought the max. for keywords was around 1,055 characters?? Am I wrong??

[Lever]

"Round and round and round it goes, where it stops, nobody knows..."

Personally I pick the relevant 3 keywords or 3 concise keyword phrases, but you don't want to listen to me...

"Abra-abra-cadabra"

[darksat]

What I always do is check the backlinks for the top10 sites your targeting, see who has disproportionatly high ranking for the amount of backlinks and check the meta KW density and met length they have, then aim to beat that.
(eg, same amount of keywords but 1 less word)

[greatlinks]

Is it better to have a small amount of keywords in meta tag or the more the better?

Does not matter, as long as they all appear in the body as well. I would also not go nuts and keep it below 25.

[tomecki]

I have read somewere that keeping more than 3 keyword will depreciate keywords. That is why doorpages are build for main keywords. Do it is right?

[Mel]

I really do not think that a word in the keywords tag is going to improve the ranking of a page unless the page title and page content support that keyword or unless there is no competition for the keyword.

IMO if you are targeting 100 keywords or phrases on a page then by all means put in 100 words or phrases in the keywords tag and good luck to you in getting any page to rank for that many keywords.

On the other hand if you are targeting one or two words or phrases on the page then limit the keywords tag to those words or phrases seperated by commas.

[Dominic]

If you have a word or phrase worth competing on - fight for it and create a page specifically about it.. use it in metas, title, headings, copy and inbound anchor text, alt text, etc.

No way would I focus more than three variations per page - as you need the IBL's and seo to back up every word or phrase you target.

Repeat a word a maximum of three times in any one meta tag, don't use more than 3 commas in the description (MSN wants this).

Do a google search or these variations: homeless pictures, homeless photos, homeless images, homeless pics, pictures of homeless people, pictures of homeless children, pictures of homeless families... as you can see we have a page for each - and tank top ten or #1 for each seperate search (www.homeless.org.au).

I think it would have been a lot harder to get one page to achieve all that - even though it's only 7 different variations on one keyphrase.

All those variations are worth fighting for as they all bring targeted traffic to our site.

To get your first lot of links on all the different variations, just use the phrase somewhere (anywhere) in your site in the copy and link to the page specifically about it.... keep getting links from external sites.