http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html I came across this blog link which states that google does not use keyword meta tag for web ranking, it also says that google doesn't use description meta tag for web ranking. So what meta tag is important for google web ranking now? And my next question is how to provide unique meta tags for each page when you are running a script like mediawiki, wordpress, joomla which creates hundreds/thousands of pages for you? How can someone go unique?
First, Google is not the only player around. Google indeed does not use the keyword meta-tag for ranking (old news!), but other search engines DO use it, so you should not ignore it. Second, you did not read the post in webmastercentral properly. It indeed states that it does not use the description for web ranking (again, old news), but it also highlights that it DOES use the description to produce snippets in the search results, and you obviously want to bait people searching for your keywords to click on the search result, don't you? And again, other search engines DO use the "Description" metatag. Third, the the meta-tags that Google uses are listed in http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=79812 The important one for ranking (no surprise) is the "title" (though strictly speaking not a meta-tag). Fourth, there are some nice plug-ins for what you ask. For example, on my blog I use the all-in-one-SEO plugin for Wordpress. Search for those plugins, it does not take much effort. Fifth, you will not "go unique" based on meta tags. Will will "go unique" providing quality content....
I understand there are other search engines and I also understand that google's use is way more than all the rest combined. But my question was in regards to google only. Good point on having the description of the site in google snippets but i asked the question in concern with web ranking. Your link on google meta tags is pretty good. thanks