I was reading this article by Danny Sullivan http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2165061 What is your opinion?
1) The article is from 2002. 2) Yup, they're dead as far as rankings go. 3) Yahoo will still pull your meta-description and use it as the SERP description.
It's absolutely worthwhile to use the description. Keywords...probally dont do anything...but the loss of 30 seconds from my life doesn't cramp my style that much.
They may be dead but if you view the source of people whose work gets well rated you usually find the keyword and description tag. This may be overkkill but sometimes you see the meta description used in the SERP. For this reason alone it seems to me it pays to have a meta description tag. Shannon
I just use <title> and <description> and thats it. Works fine for me. Also if you do indepth keyword research which can take a long time why would you post it for all to see? I wouldnt put my keywords in the meta tag so my competition can have a peek at all the work I have done.
Also remember that no engine stays static as regards it ranking methods, one day they may become more popular again. It is easy to put them in, they do you no harm and when you take a tumble from you cosy high ranking in one of the engines then that will be one thing less for you to worry about.
The title is one of the most important elements. I would continue to use description and keyword meta tags. If not for the SE's but for marketing as well.