Your meta tag should directly related to the content of the site (and more importantly the individual page) as well as relating directly to whatever keywords you are getting linked in to your site. Meta tags should be used and optimized but they don't have as much 'pull' as they use to have.
META tags do NOT affect your rankings. Used properly however they can influence your click-through rates in the search engines.
So Dan are you saying that if there were 2 identical sites both with the same amount of inbound links from the same sites with the same anchor texts, both sites have been around for the same length of time, but one site utilizes Meta tags and the other doesn't, you're saying both will rank the same on the search engines?
Pretty much, yeah. I can see them "trading places" depending on the data center and the exact search query used (assuming they were targeting the same keywords but had different unique content). Though I think honestly the deciding factor would be the quality of the links that would push one over the other.
I agree that the quality of the inbound link will result in one site outranking the other, but I still believe the Meta tags to be valid and worthwhile, but I also agree that they shouldn't be the main focus of the site. Again, content is king and good content will garner the quality backlinks and thereby excel on the SERPS.
I'm not saying they're worthless. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, I said they CAN influence your click-through rates. I'm just saying they won't affect your rankings. (I'm taking a wait and see approach to find out what Microsoft does with Yahoo's search results via Bing.)
my apologies SCLocal my bad.......but i still doubt on the fact that if i place a <meta NOINDEX> tag on a page... Google when it sees the link to that page on other pages that can be crawled it still indexes the page (with <meta NOINDEX> tag)...your thoughts please
Okay, the NOINDEX tag will tell the search engines not to index that page. Which WILL have an impact on the rankings because it won't be in the index to begin with.
But if Google finds the link to that page(with NOINDEX tag) on other pages that can be crawled....it still indexes the page yeah
Actually, no. It will crawl the page but won't index it. At that point it'll be doing one thing and one thing only. Looking for links on the page.
My experiences are that the 'title' and 'description' meta tags are very important the 'keywords' meta tag is no so important anymore
TITLE is not a Meta tag. Its a separate element of the HTML specification. General rule of thumb: If it doesn't start with <meta it is NOT a meta tag.
Yes, you are right. On some sites they count it as a meta tag but it is indeed not a meta tag. The point I wanted to make is that the title html tag is important together with the description meta tag.
Meta tags are very important for the website..... Meta tags should be related to content of your page.... These tags help Google to get informtaion about your website Thanks Logo Design Graphics
Read what Dan says, the man speaks the truth. Meta tags have no relevance in today's search engines. However, you should still put up a meta description because sometimes google or other engines use it as the description on the search results page. This means that a well constructed phase could result in higher click throughs to your site, just as Dan said.
Meta tags are useful if you want your page removed from index (Say penalized due to Duplicate Content)....Also I Found it very useful when relating meta tags to ODP!