Meta-description tags are useless!

We all know that the meta-keyword tags are long gone.

I just got through reading a piece that claims that the meta-description tag is now useless and antiquated, and no longer needs to be included on your web pages.

A quote from the article,” Ultimately the use of Meta-Descriptions in 99% of the cases that I can imagine is going to be nothing but a detriment. They are a waste of time, money and while “Meta-Tags” are still the buzzword of the day for scammers, spammers and “buzz-word marketers,” the experienced and serious developers should know better.”

I am not willing to play Russian roulette with a client’s page, but would be interested in seeing results on a personal site. What would be the best way to test this theory?

Note: the author of the articles has meta-description and meta-keywords on his own site - LOL

 

Google ignores meta tags but there are still older (algorithm wise) searchengines that use meta tags.

IMHO the meta title is useless but the meta description will be displayed in the SE results.

 

Google does not ignore metas across the board; they even still use the description tag in some cases.

There's no harm or real waste of time to place it there, so I find no good excuse for not having it.

 

i agree, and u want a good meta tag since that is what is displayed to describe ur site visually to the user

 

If there is little or no other text on a webpage - like an image thumbnail gallery - Adsense will go to the metatags to determine content... hardly useless at all.

 

I think Meta Keywords tag is usless but Meta Description tag still works well to increase ctr of your webpages in serp.

 

The same is generally true for the GoogleBot too, not just the MediaBot for AdSense.

If there's little or no content on a page, if it's flash, if top-heavy with scripts or other "blockers" where Google would normally go for its "on-page" description, they will revert to an ODP description (if one exists and the user isn't deploying a 'noodp' tag) or the site's meta description tag.

 

Hey guys, it wont decrease your SERPS for sure, so keep using meta,
Some people say it still works, of course, if you use it properly.

 

I'd say that the title and description is still important. I was playing around with it the past month and I've seen some very notable changes with optimization in this fields.

 

DO NOT IGNORE the description tag and MAKE SURE each description tag is UNIQUE on EVERY page.

That is all.

 

meta title and meta description are still very important. they are used in search results, what are you guys talking about!

 

I wonder how old that claim/site is?

As of recently, Meta Descriptions (unique ones) have become very important to stay out of supplementals from what I've seen. Not a magic bullet, but good SEO to have them and have them be unique for all pages.

 

Yeah seriously, descriptions are VERY important imo.

 

Well they don't hurt so why don't use them

 

Meta Tags don't damage your site and can help browsers detect relevance prior to clicking. For this reason, there is no reason not to use Meta Tags. Just be sure that they are unique for each page, accurate, and relevant. The reason Meta Tags were "abandoned" was due to abuse, but they still have a good purpose.

 

Well everybody seems to agree here. I do too: meta-DESCRIPTION-tags (and title tags too) are very important to let your potential visitors know what the page is about - so they will actually click on the link to your page. So they should be unique and about the content on your page. Google often uses these descriptions, if they fit what the search-query.

 

Yes - thanks for the input on this. I can not see any good reason to ignore the meta-DESCRIPTION tag except poor SEO tactics or just plain lazy.

 

Hmmmm. Google still uses them, Yahoo still uses them, MSN still uses them. I believe I will keep using them until I see otherwise. If that guy had said, if you go ahead and jump off a bridge and your SERPs will jump to first spot across the board, would you jump off a bridge?

WAIT, don't answer that.

 

By putting unique meta tags and descriptions on all my pages I was able to move a lot of my pages out of the suplimental results.

 

I am USing ASP pages and.. At first when I launched the Site.. the SERPs were quite less..

I then used Meta Keywords, and somehow... my SERPs did strengthen...

This might be because of some other external factor... but, just like ppl above said... theres no harm in using 'em..