I've been using html for quite awhile but dont fully understand (or have kept up with) which meta tags are useful to have and if any are unnecessary or hurtful for search engine optimization. Any help would be appreciated.
As for the ones that are supposed to direct the bots where to go and 'control' refresh rates, etc. Do those just do nothing or can they actually hurt optimization?
these are the main 3 i use. <meta name="keywords" content=""> <meta name="description" content=""> <meta name="distribution" content="Global"> Code (markup):
My guess would be, and I admit to not having done any research, that this version of the tag is the default for a page and that the only time you would ever need to include that tag was on a page where you want to restrict the distribution to some local or regional area. Suffice to say I've never used that tag and my sites all show up in search engines around the world. My recommendation is to do exactly what Fryman advises and ignore or get rid of all other meta tags.
The only meta tag you must use is the TITLE and the Description. MSN and Google seems to list the description tag as of late. They tend to switch it on and off but basically the most important SEO tag is the <title></title> tag The <meta name="distribution" content="Global"> is total hogwash!!!! ****************************** Decorate your Home Office wall --> Cheap Posters and Prints Motivate yourself during hard times! --> | Motivational Posters | Career Inspirational Posters | ******************************
Yes, some of them are hurtful. For example the robot noindex etc. or the revisit after 1 month. Just have the Title, description and keywords. The meta kw tag is almost useless but I think it is still part of the algo so it should still be used, but don't spam it.
The 3 tags described above are useful, but your content has to match with what's inside those tags. If you have keywords in the keywords tag, you should "duplicate them" in the Title tag, in header, in alt, in the text (but bold)...all that in a coherent way
That certainly is the conventional wisdom on the subject, but I was reading just the other day where someone ranked well for a mispelled version of one of his keyords and the only place that appeared was in his meta tags. So there is still the chance that the search engine are looking and indexing from the meta tags.
cool-4-teens i am new to all this stuff could you tell me in the link on your sig is FREE not a dirty word to google ? The reason i ask is I also run a free site in the uk.
Correct, agree. I also agree Compar. It is hard to tell how much SEO weight they carry individually, but I think good stucture is important and helps put emphasis on desired keywords, like this: <title>#1 Keyword first followed by a brief description trying to repeat syno. terms!</title> <meta name="keywords" content=" #1 Keyword first, Unique Keyword, Unique Keyword, Unique Keyword, Unique Keyword, Unique Keyword"> <meta name="description" content="#1 Keyword followed by elevator sentence, click here*Prompt Action*> Code (markup): The title and description are most important, IMO because they are often displayed word for word in SERPS. Also notice #1 Keyword...I also believe positioning is importantant. Combine that with above and you have a recipe for on-page success .
Lol. No. First the title. Description tag is important as it is being shown. KW meta tag is somewhere at the end of the list as far as the importance goes.
I don't think the major search engines cares about <strong> or <b> except W3C. <strong> is no magic pill just like <b> is no magic wand for good search engine rankings. It's just a question of choice. Personally i've never seen a site rank higher in the serps just because of <strong> or <b> tags. It's just a question of choice for the webmaster. I use both.
I also use <meta name="ROBOTS" content="NOARCHIVE" /> so that google does not cache pages whose content expires after several days (classified ads)