How important are meta tags to SEO? Are they even necessary? Just wanted to know some opinions to if they actually make a difference before I put them on my new site I am building. THANKS.
For sure they don't hurt if done correctly ! You should have them in for that reason if nothing else. Title Tag and description are the most important in terms of SEO and helping the users identify the content of your site from search results. Consider the user experience and structure your titles/desc as such.
They just for the search engines to see what your site is about. For instance, if you put something in meta description and your site ends up on the search engine result page then the description comes from your meta.
Title Tag & Meta Description tags are really helpfull for site. Its always better to put it for the search engines point of view to understand them about site.
Google doesn't put nearly as much weight on meta tags as they used to. I think they still have some influence on Google, but I've seen others who disagree and say Google ignores meta tags now. However, whether they do you don't, Google isn't the only search engine out there (is it?!). I say include them in your spanking new site.
I will not say that META tags are important but no harm placing them on your site especially when some search engines still read them
Most of the posts in this thread are mixing the pretty-much-ignored keywords meta tag with the useful-but-not-for-ranking description meta tag and with the absolutely essential <title> tag, which IS used in ranking. Whatever you decide to do with the keywords and description meta tags is up to you but make certain that you have a well-crafted <title> tag which contains your most important search terms.
There are three types of metatags that matter in descending order: title-tag: important for ranking for certain keywords description tag: important for making people click on your site in the serps keywords tag: important for MSN / Yahoo, not google (well, google adsense a bit). More in detail on keywords and metatags: http://www.katinkahesselink.net/internet/meta-tags.html
title tag isn't a META tag, META tags have this form : <meta name="keywords" content="" /> <meta name="description" content="" />
I said that in the post just above you two hours earlier. There is no evidence that this is true. Absolutely correct.
meta tags only, the description tag is the only one worrying about as this helps stops duplicate content and can increase chance of visitors clicking from the organic listings (return on search engines, ROSE!? lol)
Exactly, although Google may not place much weight on the meta tags, they do help alittle, and in SEO a little goes a long way. Also, there more than just three search engines out there that people use. And think about this: would you want just a random snippet of text under your listing in the SERPs or a good description that informs people what your site is about. If it doesn't hurt...use it.
I've red a lot of things about meta tags especially about KEYWORDS and DESCRIPTION but I never sow any specific lenght of those tags. Some spammers use for Keywords 3-4 rows (approximately 50-60 keywords) other use 5-6 keywords .. it's the same with meta description .. Can someone share with us from his experience what is the recomended lenght for those tags???? Please Cheers, Venetsian.