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New Meta Tags

Discussion in 'Yahoo' started by rubenmajor, May 1, 2005.

  1. #1
    I recently changed my title and description meta tags and noticed that I initally experienced a quick gain in rankings, but that now after a few days, they have dropped lower and lower. What I am wondering is whether my site has to work its way back up or if I should change my meta tags back to what they were before.

    Also, what about the # of words that you have in your title? Can you have too many? What is a good number? Anyone? :confused:
     
    rubenmajor, May 1, 2005 IP
  2. City2

    City2 Peon

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    #2
    6-8 words works well in the title. I am not sure about the meta tags, I dont believe they have any affect.
     
    City2, May 1, 2005 IP
  3. minstrel

    minstrel Illustrious Member

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    #3
    I believe the limit is 255 characters for the title -- put your most important search terms first.

    For which search engine, which webpage(s)/site, and which search terms are you seeing this gaining and dropping?
     
    minstrel, May 1, 2005 IP
  4. rubenmajor

    rubenmajor Well-Known Member

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    #4
    Well, I'm sandboxed by google. MSN is relatively stable. So for yahoo which is the SE I am refering to, I recently changed my title tags for www.roommatesonline.net. I have been trying to optimize for roommates, roommate search, and rooms for rent. The search terms I am seeing gaining and dropping are the first two.
     
    rubenmajor, May 1, 2005 IP
  5. minstrel

    minstrel Illustrious Member

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    #5
    You seem to have a coding error:

    <html>
    <title>Roommates Online Network- Roommate Search finder & Rooms for Rent</title>
    
    <META NAME="Subject" CONTENT="Roommate Locator">
    <META NAME="Description" CONTENT="A Roommate search, roommates finder, & rooms for rent service. FREE to post rooms to rent and Free to search. It is quick & easy to find roommates online whether you are renting or looking for a rental.">
    <META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT=" roommates, roommate, roommates online, roommate search, online, room rent, free, search, rent room service, flatmate, flats, in, find, ROOMMATES, roomate, new york, los angeles, phoenix, san diego, chicago, houston, philadelphia, dc, dallas">
    <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW,">
    <META NAME="CLASSIFICATION" CONTENT="">
    <META NAME="Author" CONTENT="NetWave Design: Web Design and Development, Hosting and Network Solutions for business (http://www.netwave-design.com)">
    <META NAME="Copyright" CONTENT="NetWave Design (C) 2001-2005">
    <META NAME="REVISIT-AFTER" CONTENT="7 days">
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
    <meta http-equiv="content-language" content="EN">
    <link href="inc/styles.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet">
    
    <script language="JavaScript">
    <!--
    
    function SymError()
    {
      return true;
    }
    
    window.onerror = SymError;
    
    var SymRealWinOpen = window.open;
    
    function SymWinOpen(url, name, attributes)
    {
      return (new Object());
    }
    
    window.open = SymWinOpen;
    
    //-->
    </script>
    
    <script src="inc/script.js" type="text/JavaScript"></script>
    
    <body>
    Code (markup):
    There is no <head>...</head> tag. Insert <head> after <html> and </head> just before <body>

    You should also delete these:

    <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW,">
    <META NAME="CLASSIFICATION" CONTENT="">
    <META NAME="Author" CONTENT="NetWave Design: Web Design and Development, Hosting and Network Solutions for business (http://www.netwave-design.com)">
    <META NAME="Copyright" CONTENT="NetWave Design (C) 2001-2005">
    <META NAME="REVISIT-AFTER" CONTENT="7 days">
    Code (markup):
    especially the last one.
     
    minstrel, May 1, 2005 IP
  6. compar

    compar Peon

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    #6
    I agree with everything that minstrel has said except I believe titles get truncated after 60 characters. It is description that have the 255 character limit I think.
     
    compar, May 1, 2005 IP
  7. rubenmajor

    rubenmajor Well-Known Member

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    #7
    Thank you for the advise and I didn't notice such a simplicity as a no <head> code, lol! My designer must have forgot. I didn't feel comfortable with the revisit after 7 days thing either. I'll give it a shot and see what happens. I'll let you know.

    Take a look again. Is that what you had in mind?

    I'll have to give my designer a hard time about this simple mistake. :D Any other advice?
     
    rubenmajor, May 1, 2005 IP
  8. minstrel

    minstrel Illustrious Member

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    #8
    compar, you are probably correct. In any case, I would expect there's a limit to the useful/practical length of the title, whatever the theoretical limit.

    Jill Whalen suggests that "search engines will display 60 to 115 characters of your title tag" (see All About Title Tags - you may not agree with everything she says in that article but the basic information is sound, I think) and others have pointed out that browsers have limits as to the length of the title they will display, depending on screen/display resolution (which isn't the only use for the title tag, of copurse).
     
    minstrel, May 1, 2005 IP
  9. rubenmajor

    rubenmajor Well-Known Member

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    #9
    I have noticed many other sites with up to 80 characters in the top results. I wonder if there is a penalty for additional characters and how severe if any.

    Also, if the link anchor text is different than the description and the linking title is different from the meta title does that make any difference?
     
    rubenmajor, May 1, 2005 IP
  10. minstrel

    minstrel Illustrious Member

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    #10
    minstrel, May 1, 2005 IP
  11. rubenmajor

    rubenmajor Well-Known Member

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    #11
    Pretty cool tool. Thanx.
     
    rubenmajor, May 1, 2005 IP
  12. minstrel

    minstrel Illustrious Member

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    #12
    It shouldn't, as long as they are about the same topic. As noted in the Jill Whalen article cited above, you should also try to have the search terms in the title present on the page somewhere as well for maximum effectiveness.
     
    minstrel, May 1, 2005 IP