Using Meta Tags - What is your Opinion Please?

During the past year or so I have been reading alot about SEO and have found that there are alot of debate about the use of meta tags.

Some believe that using meta tags is a complete waste of time, while others wouldn't build a site without them. And then there are those who say that even though they have lost some importance over the past few years, it is still a good idea to put some effort into developing them.

My question to all the SEO people out there is quite simple, what is your opinion, and why?

 

Meta tags includes lots of things..

Meta title and meta description are the most important.
while meta keywords dont work.

 

I've heard meta tags have lost importance over the years too, but using them can't be a bad thing.

One thing I have noticed is its better to keep them short. 1 matching keyword in a list of 10 is going to get a better result than in a list of 100.

 

Meta descriptions are good for creating nicer summaries in results, but do nothing for SERPs.

meta descriptions are virtually useless.

 

Most of the META tags are useless. Especially the ones concerning the indexing of pages, the following of links, and keywords. The default behavior of a search engine is to index all the pages its spiders can find and to follow all the links contained therein, so this isn't needed. On the rare chance a page needs to be blocked, that's what the robots.txt file is for. Need to block a link? Use rel="nofollow" then. As for the keywords, they'll be picked up in the content. If you do use the keyword attribute, make sure that you spend no more than five minutes on them, but be aware that you're giving your competition a free peek at what keywords you're targeting.

As for the meta description, this is your first chance to make a solid impression on a searcher who's staring at your link in his or her search results page. Make the most of it.

 

I'd suggest using them...

check out the indexed pages on this site: http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&q=site%3Aaspvphp.com&btnG=Google+Search

all the descriptions are the META descriptions... So they must mean something...

 

I support meta tags.They really works.

 

I think Dan Shulz pretty much covered everything. The meta tags are mostly useless (except for descriptions in SERPs), but every little bit helps - so use 'em but don't spend too much time on it.

 

Title and Description still plays an important role. Search for anything in google and then open the page in a separate windows, what you will generally see is that the Anchor text in the search results will be taken from the Meta Tag title. However, it is not a thumb rule, I am talking about a general rule.

 

In some debates on many forums, some says that meta tags are still used by yahoo and msn. if using meta tags takes no bad effects to a web site, I think it's better to include them just in case if some search engine still using them. I still use meta keyword and description.

Success to you all!!

 

For increase ranking in search engine you should use meta tags. It is very important.

 

I agree with you priyakochin. I still use meta tags. It is still working.

 

The META description tag is vitally important.

It isn't a ranking factor so forget about keyword density and all that rubbish.

Concentrate on describing the content of your page accurately to help encourage visitors.

Make sure you stick to 160 characters as this is the limit returned in Google SERPs. It is important you get everything down as concisely as possible.

- Matt

 

i believe that it is useless. though iam still using this. there's nothing wrong using metas. and it can never harm your site.

 

I think TITLE and META DESCRIPTION is still important...

 

Using Metatags is essential to your website. I have carried an experimient on Meta Description Tags and Meta Keywords Tags and concluded that it is essential to use the Metatags.

There is a lot of crap about SEO on the net and here are some of my experimental findings.

Metatags used to have a good influence on site ranking in Search Engines. Actually I'm talking only about two Metatags: Description tags and Keywords Tags as there are other tags as well which are irrelevant.

Due to spammers abuse to the Meta tags, its importance has declined substantially. But, it doesn’t hurt if you optimize and use them without spamming.

1) Google dropped its reliance on Metatags around the new millennium, and Meta tags won't have any significant influence on it's algorithmic weight and if it does, it is going to be negligible.

2) Yahoo and NSM on the other hand, are two newer search engines and still rely on the Meta tags to rank sites but not that much. At least if you read their guidelines both of them say that they do have some influence on ranking among other factors.

I use a couple of test sites that are ranked in the top 10 positions of Yahoo and MSN with very few incoming links. I removed the description tag from one and removed the keywords tag from the other.

(*) The site without the keywords tag dropped below the ground.
(*)The other that was missing the description tag dropped a few positions.

From this experiment I concluded that it is essential to include both Metatags Description tags and Keywords tags for Yahoo and MSN and other smaller/medium search engines who still use this technology.

This web site is not complete yet but you may read more about:

How to Optimize Title Tags.
How to Optimize Meta Description Tags.
How to Optimize Meta Keywords Tags.

 

Even tho keyword metatag cares no weight on Google it seems like it is still important for smaller search engines hence you read those people not thinking about without using meta keywords tag.

As far is regards the meta description it still does care some weight in terms of SEO, nothing big but there is some importance and hence it is good to use them. But if the importance of meta description tag is is not that important in SEO terms it is important for users that will find your site on search engines. A good and descriptive metadescription gets noticed by those visitors that have performed a search query and hence many say that it increases the click through rate. You can read about meta description and also on Aaron Walls blog about metadescription optimization video

 

And for the record, Yahoo's been around a lot longer than Google has.

 

The meta-description is important for higher clickthrough. If you've ever done PPC you will know what a tremendous difference compelling text can have to convince people to click on your site.

In terms of Google, the meta-description can potentially hurt your ranking if your title, on page content, and meta all align too much.

Meta-keywords are still being used by Yahoo, and if you overstuff, you will be penalized.

 

meta title and descriptions are important, as well as telling the bots how often to check the site.