Do Meta tags work anymore / Give me hints

do meta tags do much anymore?

i've heard that meta tags don't do much for search engines anymore, but i still use them.

my website has a database that we use to store information on the media we host. i use a simple script at the beginning of the page to pull all of them into the meta tags. heres the script:

  <meta name='Author' content='Spencer Holt and Michael Flynn'>
  <meta name="verify-v1" content="12VXk4LI8CITp7HC/4uf3HceemVuGT4D8PeRemF3Ztk=" /> 

  <?php
   mysql_select_db("*******_*****") or die("Could not select database");
   $getanimeList = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM animes");
   while($animemeta = mysql_fetch_array($getanimeList)){
    $metaInfo .= ", {$animemeta[name]}"; 
   }
   $gettypeList = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM types");
   while($typemeta = mysql_fetch_array($gettypeList)){
    $metaInfo .= ", {$typemeta[type]}"; 
   }  
   echo "
    <meta name='keywords' content='{$metaInfo}'> \n
    <meta name='Description' content='One of the Biggest Anime Download Sites on the Net.  We offer: {$metaInfo}'> \n
   ";
  ?>

PHP:

and we STILL have a really low page rank on all search engines. what am i doing worng?

 

I think the general consensus is metatags aren't worth much anymore.

 

Meta tags have very little use now with the big engines. They do help some with smaller search engines. I use them but the PR and the position on search engines has more to do with original content, how often you update your content and how many and how good your back links are.

Hope this helps !

 

I agree the metadescription can be useful still. General metatags though probably aren't worth your time

 

Good point Aaron. Those are the reasons I still use the meta tags. They still help for those reasons. You can also use them if you want to block some web crawlers.

 

Meta tags are deffinitly used and are important BUT they do play a small part in the whole scheme of things. The text in the meta tag is important as well as the title tag, name of the file, text in the document, and key word relevancy.

 

Yeah the description tag is still very important. Make sure it's unique for each page.

With regards the others, there's no harm in using a small number of keywords but just don't go overboard. 6-8 non-repetitive keywords can't hurt.

 

Meta tags are still useful when used correctly. But keep in mind that meta tags have nothing to do with page rank, in order to get good pr you will need some good backlinks and all that good stuff.

 

well, mine is generating at least 60 keywords for our site... should i JUST put that on the index and then make different ones for different pages?

 

they are still somewhat important but meta tags are not the reason you have low rankings

 

hey, atleast they still help a little.

right?

 

can anyone tell me how i can imporve the ratings?

 

60 keywords seems a little much...what you need to do is pick a few keywords, and then really work around those...use them in your meta tags, your H1 tags, and in the content...but not to much, as you don't want to be seen as spamming. You could also include them in your headings and in the title of your page. That should help you a little spikeon.

 

Yes, it is use by Google as a description for your site... It is still helpful for SERP....

 

Some search engine still give value to meta tags.

 

Having unique keywords might help keep your pages out of Google's supplemental index as aaron_nimocks pointed out, but they should be optimized for the content on the pages on which they appear. I don't see how the current approach of picking words from a list without regard to the page's content will do much good. In fact, if there are duplicates or words with low density, it could actually hurt as some engines might view it as keyword spam and spank you for it.

That said, content is much more important for rankings, along with relevent titles and description.

 

Meta tags are still important. At least, in SERPs, searchers rely mostly on them to find out which site might be relevant to their wants.

 

IMO, they make only a difference in the smaller search engines, so its still best to add them as alot of people do use those search engines!

 

Yes, in terms of keywords, description, robots, and verify