Are meta tags still important?

I am trying to get my site indexed by google and have created a robots.txt file, uploaded my xml sitemap to Google webmasters, and submitted it to a bunch of search engines.

My question is: Are meta tags still important in the SEO game, or are they a method of the past?

Please list your reasons why meta tags are still important or why they are not. Also, where can you go to find a good free Meta Tag generator.

Thanks to all!

 

I believe they still are since most searches to my site show the meta the keywords highlighted in the meta title or description. Not sure if the keyword meta means as much, though.

 

Ive never had anything come of keyword tags.

Probably the most important tag is title. !!!

 

The 3 main meta tags to use are description, bots & keywords. Keywords isn't currently used by Google crawlers but other search engines do use it, and due to algorithmic changes in the future Google could in theory once again use keywords meta tag.

 

That's a good start, but there are more factors! I suggest you to read this excellent article on the Google search engine ranking factors by SEOmoz. To my opinion, an appropriate and well-formed meta-title and a ditto meta-description are of great importance, while the meta-keywords are less important.

 

Contrary to popular belief, some search engines still give weight to meta-tags. In fact, Yahoo and MSN still use meta-tags as determining factors for ranking websites. Google however ignores meta tags altogether. Admittedly, meta-tags degree of importance isn't significant, when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO). That being said, every little bit helps.

 

Agreed.
They are no use at all in Google but some of the other less clever SE's do still use them to an 'extent'

 

A 'clever' search engine wouldn't use meta tags to weigh a website, as it's easy enough to build a site about ABC then customise all meta tags to show a site about XYZ. This then drops the end user using the search engine off at an unwanted website, thus demoralising the search engine to the user.

 

very and just for the record use them

 

meta keywords is not important anymore

 

in some issue, this is not important and some say it's way of spamming. IMO
not all SE disregarded metas so theres nothing wrong with it.and proper metas was not consider as a spam.. as long as you consider KD.

 

are you asking if you should use them or not??

 

of course meta tags are important, Meta tags can help improve your placement in search engines and can help increase traffic to your Web site. Most likely, if your site does not have "keywords" in the head of your html code, the engines will not find your website. You check these sites for meta tags generator...
www.submitexpress.com/metatags.html
www.vancouver-webpages.com/META/mk-metas.html
www.submitcorner.com/Tools/Meta/

 

I always use them, but when you do, do not abuse them!

 

Might not be imprortant in Ranking
but google and other searche engines display them as part of YOUR snippet when your site shows up in their search results

So try to make them human readable actually

 

It can consider spamming only when you keyword stuffed it,. and as what you've said proper use of it is ok,.

Not anymore in google,. it no longer added weight on meta tags,.
I think the meta title and description only are the two useful meta tags as Chios said it still helps in SOME ways like displaying it as a part of snippet,.
Yahoo still added a LITTLE weight on meta tags

 

sorry i think you get me wrong..


if you do used your metas properly, regards with kw stuffing (keyword stuffing- obviously consider as a spam ), thats is why you must consider KW Density.

 

This is the basic reason to keep using a meta description. Search Engines will show the meta description as the description with the link to your site in the results if you have a good meta description. Other than that they have very little if any effect on rankings.

 

Whether it's important to SEO or not doesn't matter much, a description and keyword that describe the site is still good.

 

Due to spam now google is not considering meta tag. Title and content is important