I am very eager to know about this from Minstrel He would not again post here as it has been proved that Google also takes meta description during rankings!
That's simply not true. All of those words are in your page TITLE - and in that order - which we know Google uses for ranking: <TITLE>Live PR | Check Page rank | Google Page rank | Internal Pages PR</TITLE> <meta name="keywords" content="live PR,Check Page rank, live page rank,Google page rank,Page rank,Internal pages Page rank"> <meta name="description" content="The tool helps webmasters to check live Google Page Rank from Different datacenters and also it helps to Check Page rank of Internal Pages of an Website."> Code (markup): I'm sorry to disappoint you but your little "test" simply does not "prove" anything at all that we didn't already know. We Know that anchor text is important. You have shown that one of your pages ranks for an idiosyncratic term, but (1) that term is in the anchor text of a backlink, and (2) that term appears on a page in proximity to your URL which is indexed by Google. Actually, I was sleeping. And as you can see, I've just shown you that your "test" is entirely bogus. Perhaps you misunderstand the difference between a TITLE tag and a meta DESCRIPTION tag?
Yes, Google is using meta description. It does not affect SERP position, but affect click rate of this position, because meta description is displayed when it contains keywords, which user is looking for. When user see in SERP well-written description, than click rate is better.
Ok, see... this is why I asked if you were a drinker. I refuse to discuss this with someone who has problems thinking or is impaired chemically, and again, this is not a character judgement, just a personal choice on my part. Your failing to see that having the text as the anchor text is the closest proximity you can get text to a link shows that there is something missing in your ability to reason. Now toss in that you are unable to make the connection that all of the other terms were also in close proximity to links to that page, yet none of them are affecting it. It should be blatantly obvious that a link alone didn't do it, but a link plus a meta description did. -Michael
1. I'm drinking coffee. 2. I'm sorry your little "test" didn't demonstrate what you hoped but if you think you're going to make your argument suddenly more compelling by insulting me because I've pointed out a flaw there's really no point in trying to have a civilized discussion with you. 3. It's not "blatantly obvious" that a link alone didn't do it. You have a link, with anchor text, pointing to that page. I conclude, based on your "test" and all other data that I've seen, that a link with anchor text is sufficient to index a page for that particular term. The fact that you may not be showing up for other terms after a period of what? a week? just tells me that you're not yet showing up for those terms.
I didn't "insult" you because you pointed out a flaw, what I did was to point out that there are serious flaws in your conclusion. In fact, you have yet to say where I was wrong in that post at all. You merely played the "you insulted me" card in hopes that people will take your side on the "look at how mean he is!" tactic alone. Whatever. Leaving that alone for a moment, and ignoring the fact that everything was synchronized in terms of indexing, etc... the one term showed up first, how long do you need for it to stay that way without terms 2 & 3 ranking for it to be proof to you? And you are saying that with no other changes all three terms will get ranked, correct? You haven't seen that since the changes from earlier this spring except in extreme cases, and not with just a handful of links. -Michael
Looks like we have some debating going on about whether meta description affects ranking or not. I like start debate and conflict, at least of the healthy variety. But yeah things are going well with it all.
First Google sees whether any site has title that matches the search term and then it sees whether any site matches the description like that....
Ok, Freewebspace, I'm sorry... you know minstrel and I happen to be on opposite sides of this debate, but with what you keep pointing out he does happen to be correct. In the site you quoted, all of the words appear in the page title: And your title is: Live PR | Check Page rank | Google Page rank | Internal Pages PR The word "of" is ignored in non-exact quote searches. The discussion is whether or not meta tags will influence rankings without the text being anywhere else on the page. Your example doesn't really have anything to do with what we are talking about here. Peace. -Michael
The proper way to test this, and yes there are flaws to the above test, is to not have the nonsensical unique term appear ANYWHERE else but in the test page meta description. It should not be in a title, or as content on the page, or as anchor text in a back link, or on a page that is linking to the test page. It should be in the meta description only and absolutely nowhere else. Then a second test should be run (and this one is a lot harder to control). 2 pages and a new term. 1 page with the term in the title, and another page with it in title and in the description. Again nowhere else. All links to these pages must carry equal weight in order for the test to be accurate. And then wait and see which one ranks higher. Now some statistical relevance would be needed too. So you might need to make 20 pages. 10 title only, and 10 title plus meta description. (really there should probably be 50 to 100 each for true statistical relevance) If significantly more of the pages with the keyword in the description out rank the pages without it in the description, then you might be able to say that meta description has weight in ranking. BUT, maintaining equal link weights and all other ranking factors, to all those pages will be very tough to control. They need to be on separate domains, else all but one of them get thrown into supplemental results. But all domains must be of equal trust rank. In other words they should be new domains all bought on the same day. Sub-domains on one domain might work ( i don't know). Then you need to devise a way to apply identical link weights to the test pages. And that's fraught with problems. For example, if you were doing 100 or even 10 test pages, the links cannot simply be a list of links on one page pointing to all those pages. The top link in the list might be passing more weight than the bottom link. The first cited link might be deemed more important than the last one cited.
You missed the gist of what I originally said. It is agreed upon that you cannot rank for a term found only in the meta description, this has been tested and proved many times. The question was whether or not the meta description were factored into rankings at all, period. Since the Googlebombing algo changes earlier this year, you also cannot ranking on links alone. Therefore, if you can rank on links + meta description, then it must be being factored in on some level. -Michael
Oh, balderdash. I've twice pointed out the flaw in your conclusion. I'm saying that your "test" is contaminated. I would have thought that was clear. Finally! Someone who understands something about sampling and experimental design. Thank you!! No, Michael. You have missed pretty much all of what axemedia posted and what I have been trying to explain to you. You really need to do some reading into experimental design.
Ok, from looking at the relevant parts of this, I still have no f'ing clue how the hell you think you're making any kind of sense in what you are saying. It seems painfully apparent that you just cannot follow a simple conversation when more than one person at a time is participating. -Michael
Look. I was attempting to have a civil discussion with you. Clearly, you're incapable of that. You may consider yourself on ignore. If you want to believe that your little "test" "proves" anything at all, knock yourself out. For everyone else, I'm still seeing no evidence demonstrating that the meta description tag is a ranking factor for Google.
No, you're lying. Delibertely pretending not to understand the concepts being discussed is anything but civil. It's about as passive aggressive as you can get. -Michael
Wow, minstrel and mvandemar are really going at it. Who's on what site? Who thinks that meta description tag has ANY effect on search results? My belief is that meta description has absolutely NO effect on the search; it is just the snippet, nothing more. Who has that side? Either way, I respect both sides because I'm not sure myself.
Thank you Kaabi. If anyone else has any reasonable explanations why out of three terms pointing at the site, only the one that also has it in the meta description actually ranked, I'd love to hear the theories. -Michael
That's my opinion too. That's what ALL the evidence suggests. Two people in this thread have claimed to have evidence to the contrary. Neither has provided anything that isn't either plain wrong or fatally flawed. If there is any REAL evidence that Google uses the meta description tag for ranking, I'd love to see it.
No it doesn't. You already did. If there were any REAL evidence you understood what the hell you were looking at, or how the conversation went, I'd love to see that. -Michael
Poor child. I realize it must be very disappointing to think you've produced evidence of something and have a fatal flaw in your logic pointed out. Get over it. Move on and find something that will actually stand up to scrutiny.