Is the Keywords Meta Tag Still Useful for SEO?

Is the Keywords Meta Tag Still Useful for SEO?

Many people who are new to the seo industry come across articles from the 1990s that stress the importance of meta tags.  Such advice is quite outdated.  A lot of search engines do not even look at this tag anymore.  Some of the search engines that do look at this tag, only do so to identify spam.  There are still benefits to including a keywords meta tag for every vital page of your website.

Why Don’t Some Search Engines Use This Tag Anymore?

Back in the early days of the web, the search engines did not rely on links to determine how relevant a website is for a particular keyword.  Instead they primarily looked at on-page factors to determine rankings.  To get rankings and traffic, it was a competition of who could get their target keywords into all the right places of their website.  One key spot to place their target phrases was the keywords meta tag.  For some search engines this was the first on-page location they would check when ranking websites.

The problem with this ranking strategy is that it was extremely simple to manipulate.  Some people would simply copy their competitors meta tags in full.  Other more crafty internet marketers would include hundreds of words in their keyword tag.  The spammier marketers would list countless irrelevant, high traffic keywords – everything from adult to pharmacy keywords.  These people didn’t care how relevant their traffic was; they just wanted traffic volume.  These spammy techniques would work quite well and you could get rankings for nearly any keyword that you included in your meta tags.  It became one of the first search engine optimization techniques that was widely used by spammers. 

Eventually search engines had to ignore this tag because it no longer determined who was relevant.  Who would’ve thought that website marketers wouldn’t be completely honest when making their meta tags?  In a perfect world, search engines could just rely on the honesty of website marketers to determine relevance.  With millions of dollars on the line in some industries, seo professionals pushed the boundaries of what was considered ethical marketing.  Everyone was suddenly in a rush to get a piece of the newfound website fortunes.

Then Why Is the Keywords Meta Tag Still Useful?

Although many search engines stopped relying on this meta tag, others simply place less weight on it.  They would still check to see if a keyword is in this tag, but it was no longer the silver bullet solution.  Including your target keywords in your meta tags still helps rankings on Yahoo and other smaller search engines.  Even if you rely on Google for your traffic, you should not ignore the potential traffic that Yahoo can provide.  You need every bit of help you can get to improve your rankings.

Another benefit of including a keywords meta tag is that it helps keep pages focused on certain keywords.  A content writer could check this tag to see which words to include in their writing.  A link builder could check this tag to see which phrases they should be targeting for link anchor text.

Is There a Downside to Including Meta Keywords?

As long as you don’t try anything spammy with your meta tags, they won’t harm your search engine rankings.  Just ensure that you are only including words that are relevant to the page content.  Ideally all of those words would be included in the page text as well.  Avoid repeating keywords too.  If you get spammy, be prepared for penalties from the search engines in time.

One potential downside that some people are worried about is the competitive intelligence that it provides.  At a glance, competitors could see exactly which phrases a page is targeting.  I don’t give this argument much credit.  Strong competitors can find out your exact target keywords by analyzing your page content and links.  There are even automated tools that provide this analysis.  Really if a competitor needs to see your meta tags to know this information, it is unlikely that they are really a serious competitor.

Jeremy Biberdorf -
About the Author:

Jeremy Biberdorf is an internet marketing professional with over 10 years of experience. Check out his website for low priced paid keyword search tools.

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How to Add Meta Elements on your Blog?

How to Add Meta Elements on your Blog?

What are Meta Elements? Where should we place Meta Elements on our blog? and What is the purpose of Meta Elements?

These are the questions that this article will answer.

First we need to define what Meta Elements are. Meta Elements are those HTML or XHTML elements that provides information about a certain webpage. Meta Elements are also used by the Search Engines for a web page to be categorize correctly. Adding Meta Elements on your page is an ancient way of optimizing a site but, in my own experience Meta Elements still works.

Meta Elements are inserted between tags. Here is an example of Meta Elements on a web page.

Description and keywords are some of the Meta Attributes or Meta tags. The other attributes are language attribute and robot attribute.

Meta Description tags is where you can add the description of your page. Major Search Engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN supports this attribute. When you used one of the search engines and search for your blog. Because those major search engines can’t generate an automatic description of your blog or web page the description that you inputed on the Meta Description Tags will appear below the Title of your blog.

It was year 1997 when Meta Keywords Tags are first used. It was popularized by Infoseek and AltaVista search engines. In no time, the popularity of adding keywords started to spread. Year 1998 when Search engines starts to drop the used of Meta Keywords tags, because some Web masters used this attributes to add fake keywords. SE also realized that meta elements specially Meta Keywords Tags are misleading and unreliable.

Next is the Language Attributes. Language attributes are mostly used for those site that uses different languages. Through this attribute search engines will be inform which language does a site used.

Another attribute is the Meta Robot Tags. Meta Robot tags are used if you want your page or your site not to be index by the spiders. Here is the format of adding robot tags on your page. Just like the other meta attributes you need to add the robot tags in between the tags.

Nowadays, there are lots of free meta tags generator. Some of the Meta tags generator that will be find on the web are Submit Express Meta Tag Generator, Vancouver Meta Tags Builder, Online Meta tag and many more. Those sites that are mention can automatically generate meta tags for your website. You just have to follow instructions and fill up some forms and in just one click they will generate your tags and you just need to add it on your template.

Meta Tags analyzer is another tools to be used in meta tags. The meta tags analyzer will check if the tags that you added on your site are right. Submit Express also has the tools for analyzing your tags.

Those are some ways on how to add meta tags on your page. Now that you know how to generate meta tags you can easily add tags on your sites. Ancient ways but, it will surely work for your site

ghing -
About the Author:

I am a SEO Writter. I write different articles for our company site entitles SEO Solutions.

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SEO Meta Tags: What They Are And How To Use Them

SEO Meta Tags: What They Are And How To Use Them

Meta tags appear within the section of the page, before the . This means that they are just about the first thing that the search engine bot sees when it arrives on one of your web pages.

One of the vital tags to include here is the title tag in the form:

Strictly speaking this is not a meta tag (they all start with the word meta), but it comes in the same place. Unlike the meta tags, the title tag is not optional. All correctly coded HTML pages must have title tags.

The following are the most commonly used SEO meta tags for an HTML page:

Careful use of meta data can make a huge difference to your site’s search engine rankings. It only takes a moment to include SEO meta tags in an HTML page, so don’t neglect this.

Ruth Landry -
About the Author:

For an awesome SEO service, check out Cheap Seo Service

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How Important are META Tags?

How Vital are META Tags?

Meta tags don’t matter. Meta tags aren’t a magic SEO solution. Meta tags help determine how you rank in Google. Meta tags can affect the volume of incoming traffic to your website. You need Meta tags on every page of your website. You don’t Meta tags on any page of your website but the main page.

Confused yet? Depending upon what you read about search engine optimization, Meta tags are either the be-all, end-all of excellent SEO practices, or an irrelevant exercise overshadowed by more vital things, namely site content and link popularity. Over the years, the question of Meta tags has been discussed and debated by people in the SEO game, and in some cases sites have been taken to task to using certain words in Meta data not appropriate for the site’s material. Whatever you choose to believe about Meta and such HTML tags, let it be clear that if you are going to implement such code on your site, it is best to do so correctly and in a way that will enhance rather than harm your site.

A quick survey of Meta tags

When one thinks of Meta tags, more than likely two types come to mind. In actuality, there are a number of Meta tags that may be applied to the code of a webpage. The more well loved ones include:

* KEYWORDS – A repository for placing keywords relevant to the website in one place, to allow search engines to find and therefore cache the site appropriately
* DESCRIPTION – Working on the same principal of the KEYWORD tag, the DESCRIPTION tag allows the website owner to summarize the purpose of the site
* ROBOTS – This tag gives instruction to the search engine spiders that visit the site, either allowing or forbidding them to cache the information on the page
* COPYRIGHT – Affirms the ownership of the site, handy if copyrighted material is used
* GENERATOR – Confirms the type of publishing tool used to make the page. HTML editors like Dreamweaver or FrontPage may automatically insert this tag when a new page is made
* REVISIT – Instructs search engine spiders to visit the site at specific intervals, handy if you update often, though the validity of this tag has been debated

DESCRIPTION

For the website owner who wishes to keep specific information properly indexed, Meta tags can prove useful in that respect. From an SEO standpoint, it is argued that the most vital of these tags is the DESCRIPTION tag, more so than KEYWORDS and ROBOTS. Among the major search engines, often the data used in the Meta DESCRIPTION tag is used as the site’s description in search results.

Therefore, it is vital to make sure that the content of this tag provides enough information in so many words to entice visitors to click-through. As search engines may truncate descriptions after so many characters or words, it is vital to use this tag for a descriptive site summary without being too wordy.

Authors, in particular those with multiple books, may wish to use the DESCRIPTION tag to summarize the site in its entirety. Elements in the tag should certainly include name, the primary genre written, and what incentives the site offers – not just the books.

EXAMPLE ONE: Browse Jane Doe’s site of award-winning mystery novels for sample chapters of her latest works, her personal writing diary, and a chance to win a free signed book.

EXAMPLE TWO: Mary Roe writes engaging historical romance. Read sample chapters of To Marry a Thief, her latest in the Regency London series, and sign up for Jane’s free newsletter for contest and release information.

In the above samples the Meta description defines the purpose of each website. Each specifies the author and genre and offers calls to action – one to enter a free book giveaway and the other to opt-into a free newsletter with the promise of contest wins. Both emphasize the reading samples on the site, allowing visitors to try before they buy. In just two small sentences, the entire scope of each site is outlined, and this is what the search engines will pick up as they cache the site for further information.

Bottom line, be concise in your description tag and offer incentive for a user to click-through to your site.

KEYWORDS

The debate over whether or not Meta keywords are vital may rage for years to come. In the early days of SEO it was common practice to use this tag to repeat main keywords ad nauseam or “stuff” the tag with well loved search phrases unrelated to the site’s topic. As expected, search engines have become wise to such black hat practices and may even penalize a site for trying underhanded tricks to get top results. These days, SEO experts may advise novice webmasters to focus more on Meta description, site content, and organic inbound linking. At best, Meta keywords may serve as a guide for search engines to the the focus of your site.

Should you choose to use this tag, choose keywords that are most relevant to your site and content. The mystery author may use his/her name as a search point and other relevant terms: mystery novels, mystery books, mystery fiction, thrillers, detective tales, virginia authors, murder mysteries, and so forth. There is no set rule for minimum and maximum word counts in this tag – some websites rank high with three words in the Meta keyword tag, while others with 100 words may not do as well, and vice versa. Quality always trumps quantity where this tag is concerned.

Bottom line: relevance is key, but don’t spend too much time on this tag. Save your energy for building a concise, user-friendly website. Once you have crafted the HTML code of your site, make sure what you have to offer visitors is relevant and useful, informative enough to inspire organic linkbacks. A excellent SEO balance can help bring the traffic, and sales.

Kathryn Lively -
About the Author:

Kathryn Lively writes for CINIVA Systems, seat cushion for work and travel.

http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/how-vital-are-meta-tags-124048.html

Meta 1: Casio Men's AWQ101B-2AVCF Blue Active Dial Multi-Task Gear Sport Watch

Casio Men’s AWQ101B-2AVCF Blue Active Dial Multi-Task Gear Sport Watch

• Reliable quartz movement
• EL backlight with Afterglow, Dual Time,
• 2 Daily alarms and 1 snooze alarm, hourly time signal, countdown timer
• Moon age and phase indicator, tide graph, 12 and 24 hr. formats, 1/100 Sec. stopwatch
• Water resistant up to 660 feet (200 M)

Sports watch, Digital quartz movement, Fish indicator, Moon data, Thermometer, Green EL backlight, Fishing mode, Temperature tendency graph and memory, World time with 30 time zones, 50 cities and city codes, Daylight saving on/off, Stopwatch, Countd

Your Price: $52.99 –

Khonz.com is not a META search Engine!!!

Khonz.com is not a META search Engine!!!

Khonz.com is one of the leading search engine of Bangladesh. According to Khonz Meta tags no longer boost a site’s rankings in search engine queries.

Meta elements are HTML or XHTML elements used to provide structured metadata about a Web page. Such elements must be placed as tags in the head section of an HTML or XHTML document. Meta elements can be used to specify page description, keywords and any other metadata not provided through the other head elements and attributes.

The keywords attribute

The keywords attribute was popularized by search engines such as Infoseek and AltaVista in 1995, and its popularity quickly grew until it became one of the most commonly used meta elements[1]. By late 1997, but, search engine providers realized that information stored in meta elements, especially the keywords attribute, was often unreliable and misleading, and at worst, used to draw users into spam sites.

Search engines started dropping support for metadata provided by the meta element in 1998, and by the early 2000s, most search engines had veered completely away from reliance on meta elements. In July 2002, AltaVista, one of the last major search engines to still offer support, finally stopped considering them.

No consensus exists whether or not the keywords attribute has any effect on ranking at any of the major search engines today. It is speculated that it does, if the keywords used in the meta can also be found in the page copy itself. With respect to Google, thirty-seven leaders in search engine optimization concluded in April 2007 that the relevance of having your keywords in the meta-attribute keywords is small to none and in September 2009 Matt Cutts of Google announced that they are no longer taking keywords into account whatsoever.  But, both these articles suggest that Yahoo! still makes use of the keywords meta tag in some of its rankings. Yahoo! itself claims support for the keywords meta tag in conjunction with other factors for improving search rankings.

The description attribute

Unlike the keywords attribute, the description attribute is supported by most major search engines, like Yahoo and Bing, while Google will fall back on this tag when information about the page itself is requested (e.g. using the related: query). The description attribute provides a concise explanation of a Web page’s content. This allows the Web page authors to give a more meaningful description for listings than might be showed if the search engine was unable to automatically make its own description based on the page content. The description is often, but not always, showed on search engine results pages, so it can impact click-through rates. Industry commentators have suggested that major search engines also consider keywords located in the description attribute when ranking pages. W3C doesn’t specify the size of this description meta tag, but nearly all search engines recommend it to be shorter than 200 characters of plain text

Meta tags are part of a website’s codes, which give extra information about the site to search engines. Meta tags are comprised of keywords that summarize what the site is about. This information is delivered to the search engine, which in turn will possess an thought about the main topics of the site.

Traditionally, search engine use Meta tags to choose if a particular site is relevant to a particular search. Theoretically, that makes these tags vital for search engine algorithms. But, Khonz emphasized that these Meta tags have no relevance to search engine optimization (SEO).

Research on recent trend, Khonz stopped making Meta tags an SEO factor upon learning that some websites started misusing them (i.e. when sites use Meta tags that are not relevant just to strengthen its search engine campaign).

Engr. Rajib Roy -
About the Author:

Engr. Rajib Roy
He is the chief developer of this project, working in a British Software company as a Sr. Programmer and now living in U.A.E. Crawler, the heart of this search engine is completely developed by his own hand and he is still trying to develop it more.

After completing his graduation in Electrical and electronic engineering he starts his carrier in IT field with some innovative project. He likes logic and like to solve problem in different logical way.
www.khonz.com

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