When you're adding meta tags to your site, are you just putting it on your homepage or all the pages in your site? Unique for each page or would it be alright to stick in to one meta description for your whole site/pages? I've heard that meta tags are not really that much important anymore like it was in the early 2k. But what's your experience with meta tags? Does it increase your SERPs?
The meta elements are to go on every single web document on your website. Search engines still use the meta description element as a description in search results. The meta keywords element has little to no value anymore due to abuse by webmasters in the past. Proper web document structuring requires you to use meta elements on all your web pages.
I just found this... SE who uses META tags: AltaVista Yes Direct Hit Yes Google No Excite Yes HotBot Yes Lycos No Nonetheless, I still want to know your experience.
Where does this "information" come from; last I checked the only people that can confirm that would be search engines themselves.
TrafficRider, I'm not sure where you got those readings. For example, I checked the "View Source" on Google and found this meta description tag: "igoogle is your personalized Google page."
I don't think he understands that certain meta elements have value while others don't. Sometimes it's like explaining something to someone in english when they only speak spanish... it just doesn't get through!
Description meta tag is still used by search engines. But don't use the same description meta tag for all pages, they need to be unique.
Dont worry about meta keywords as much though... Even if those search engines use meta keywords tags, you don't know how much weight is given to them. (most likely very little). Just stick to writing unique descriptions--then move on and do some linkbuilding...
The "weight" of the meta "Description" is not the relevant point. The description is important because it gives you control over what the search engine posts under your hyperlink in the search engine results. A well-written description, uniquely and appealingly describing that specific page, may be the determining factor as to whether a surfer clicks your SERPs link. Why work hard to get high in the SERPs and then risk losing clicks by having an insipid description that does not draw a click?
I think the use of meta tags can be helpful in establishing a theme for the page and can be helpful with rankings for non-competitive/ long tail keywords. They don't play a huge role in determining the SERPs for competitive keywords, but do play a general marketing role, like Jim said.
This issue is like so many other issues in SEO forums. Should I do THIS SEO technique, or THAT one? Should I spend more time on THIS technique or THAT one. Sixteen seo "experts" in a room will have sixteen opinions. In my 13 years of professional services management in the web arena to clients with budgets ranging from $500 up to $2,000,000 I have ALWAYS held the belief that if you do EVERY single thing you can and make use of EVERY single technique (White Hat), then you don't have to guess or wonder or stay up at night sweating as to whether you should or shouldn't have, whether it helped or it didn't. Yes, the quality of the Page TITLE is infinitely more important than the Meta Keywords and Meta Description field. Yet if just one person finds your site because just one search engine made use of your quality Meta Keywords and Meta Description field, and if that ONE person becomes your single best customer or client, then it surely was well worth the very short time it takes to properly seed those fields. As for one for the whole site or not - if you have three keyword phrases and that's ALL you have, then fine - go for using the same Title and Meta info on all your pages. If you have any serious set of various phrases, then proper SEO techniques require that you split them up between multiple pages. It's the only way that you can properly match the Title Tag, Meta Description, Meta Keywords, Alt Attributes, Link Labels, Content, and inbound link wrappers for any single page. Why? Because if you repeat any single keyword (part of any keyword phrase) more than THREE times in the Title or Meta Keywords field, you are going to potentially be penalized for perceived spamming the search engines. And you can only have X total characters in the title, and X total keywords in the Meta Keywords field and X total characters in the Meta description field. this is not rocket science, but it is an art form as well as a mathematically structured step by step process. So why not use BEST PRACTICES when you do your SEO work? If you do so, you will get the BEST results over the long-haul.
I agree that you should do each part of SEO. I believe metatags are still used in tie breakers of sites. Google algorithms change often and metatags may hold more weight in the future.