Hello, I'd like to ask if anyone knows what is optimum for meta tags? How long should be title and description and how many keywords should I have in meta tags? Also, if the page is about let's say hotels in Boston, should I use two keywords "boston, hotels" or just one "boston hotels"? Thanks
Here is a good resource for optimal tag lengths: http://www.seomoz.org/user_files/SEO_Web_Developer_Cheat_Sheet.pdf They recommend 155 characters max for the description meta tag and 70 characters max for the title. As for the keywords meta tag...don't worry about this tag. Anything you put in this tag will not help you. The search engines do not use this tag for ranking algorithms anymore. If they use it for anything it would be to filter spam.
If they do use it, it is not a very important part of their algorithm. I get great rankings on Yahoo and MSN without worrying about the keywords meta tag. These days backlinks far outweigh anything you can do on your own website. So even if you do put all your keywords in this tag, it likely won't affect your ranking.
Then read this : http://www.searchenginejournal.com/forget-google-seo-for-yahoo-and-msn-is-easy/8473/ http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/smallbusiness/webhosting/promote/promote-02.html http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/search/ranking/ranking-02.html
I use the keyword meta tag to throw off my competitors, never put your money keywords in there. The description meta tag is used to "sell the click" as google and yahoo will display it under the title tag in serp results if it contains the keyword the searcher is searching for.
sbouazza thanks for the links. I still don't think it's an important part of the algorithm, but I'm going to try changing some of my keywords and see what effect it has on my msn/yahoo rankings. I don't expect much change though. My rankings are achieved mostly from links.