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Meta Tags - Priority and relevancy

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by Talmid, Jun 7, 2009.

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  1. #1
    I would like to know what do you think regarding Which Would be the top 5 Meta Tags, Besides Keywords and description.

    Also I am a little bit confused because I 've seen giant websites without this Meta Tags and it got me thinking if they are relevant at all or not.

    Thanks!
     
    Talmid, Jun 7, 2009 IP
  2. magda

    magda Notable Member

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    #2
    Keywords is one of the least important - google doesn't read them, and love it or hate it, it's by the far the most used search engine. Put a couple in for the 'lesser' search engines - but it has no real impact.
    Title and description are the most useful - after that there are a few that may suit your particular purpose - using the noodp if you don'r want your dmoz listing as your snippet, for example

    More on the tags Google recognises here http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=79812 and here http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/12/answering-more-popular-picks-meta-tags.html
     
    magda, Jun 7, 2009 IP
  3. escalaweb

    escalaweb Peon

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    #3
    By far the most important is the title tag. Use good descriptive titles. And then a good description. But this is mainly useful for actually encouraging people that find you in the search engines to also Click on your link. No point in ranking high if both title and description are so poor that noone clicks on it.
     
    escalaweb, Jun 7, 2009 IP
  4. BeerGuy

    BeerGuy Peon

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    #4
    Most sites "should" use metatags. The bigger sites that do not use them have more specific reasons for doing so. Google does pay attention to the keywords and similar metatags - though they don't carry the weight they did a few years back.

    I'm not sure I could prioritize which ones are most important. Each meta tag that is available and appropriate for use on your site is important. Why prioritize which parts of the inner puzzle are most important, when every piece is used to put the whole thing together.
     
    BeerGuy, Jun 7, 2009 IP
  5. Canonical

    Canonical Well-Known Member

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    #5
    If by meta tags you are refering to the <meta> HTML elements within the <head> element then there are really only a couple...

    <meta name="description">
    <meta name="description"> is the most important <meta> element. While it's not used at all by Google in their ranking algorithm, it can have a BIG impact on click-thru-rates. Should be no more than 145-150 characters in length UNLESS the keyword phrase your page is ranking for is a 5, 6, 7 or more word long phrase. On long search phrases like this Google will now show as many as 400 or more characters from the <meta> description element. I start the sentences of my <meta> description with a call to action verb like "Discover ...", "Learn ...", "Find out about ...", "Purchase ...", "Buy ...", etc. to make the user want to click on my link in the SERPs.

    I figure out a way to include all of the keywords from my <title> in the <meta> description. The reason is that thoses keywords and keyword phrases from the <title> should be the words the user is using to find the page in the SERPs. And if your URL doesn't have a DMOZ entry, then Google will first look to see if all of the keywords in the search phrase appear in the <meta> description. If they do then they will use your <meta> description as the snippet. If not then they will construct a snippet from sentences fragments from the content of your page containing the various keywords in the search phrase. The reasoning being that Google wants to be able to highlight EVERY keyword from the search phrase in the snippet.

    <meta name="keywords">
    This <meta> element is pretty much defunct these days. Google's representatives like Matt Cutts, John Mu, and many others have stated repeatedly for the last several years that Google does NOT use this HTML element in ANY way in their ranking algorithm. It has no effect at all on how you rank at Gooogle. Some of the less sophisticated search engines, however, do still use it but only count it as a very minor ranking factor overall in their algorithm. So you should include it for those engines to use. Don't exceed 8-10 keyword phrases in your <meta> keywords element... maybe 15 max. It's generally considered good form to only include keywords that appear in the content of your page.

    Also, you should note that Google still looks at the <meta> keywords element from a spam filtering perspective so if you're stuffing keywords in the <meta> keywords element then it can lead to a penalty at Google even though it does NOT effect their ranking algorithm.

    <meta http-equiv="content-type">
    The only other important <meta> element that you should probably include is something like <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> to define the character set.

    The rest of the <meta> elements are worthless in regards to SEO, crawl rates, etc. and IMO should be omitted. Specifically in reference to crawl rates, never attempt to effect crawl rates using the <meta> tag. I would never set the crawl frequency in Google's WMT either... The ONLY exception to this is if your website is running on such a crappy server that having a search engine crawl it brings it to its knees, THEN and ONLY then should you try to control the crawl rate using <meta> and/or Google's WMT. Never use it to attempt to make them crawl it more frequently.
     
    Canonical, Jun 7, 2009 IP
  6. freelistfool

    freelistfool Peon

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    #6
    Set the title and description on your pages and don't worry too much about the other meta tags. Your title should be short and to the point and contain your keywords. The description should be a "call to action" that will make the person searching want to click on your site...and also contain your keywords.
     
    freelistfool, Jun 7, 2009 IP
  7. fisher34

    fisher34 Peon

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    #7
    Agree with the reply above - the title is by far the most important. Just include your main keywords in this and use the meta description as a place to provide a call to action (e.g. free delivery, low prices etc). Don't worry about getting the right number of keywords in your meta description - it's irrelevant in terms of helping you rank in Google.
     
    fisher34, Jun 7, 2009 IP
  8. Canonical

    Canonical Well-Known Member

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    #8
    I would agree that <title> is the most important HTML element that affects rankings. But I don't consider <title> a "meta tag". It's simply another on-page HTML element whose value is displayed in the browser like <h1>, <h2>, <p>, etc.

    When I hear "meta tag" I think of the <meta> HTML element in the <head> element which provides meta-data about the page but are not displayed in the browser.
     
    Canonical, Jun 7, 2009 IP
  9. tsboss1

    tsboss1 Peon

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    #9
    can somebody help me with adding meta tags to my website? I have no idea on how to do this......
     
    tsboss1, Aug 2, 2009 IP
  10. webhunter2001

    webhunter2001 Greenhorn

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    #10
    You just need title and discription.
     
    webhunter2001, Aug 2, 2009 IP