Hey guys just wanted to know if Meta Tags are still alive. thanks SearchBliss
Meta Tags are they still Alive
- Thread starter SearchBliss
- Start date
Official reports say that for Google and most other big names in search, they're useless.
I did a test and added meta keywords to about ten product pages, nothing changed with Google as far as I can tell.
Personally, I wouldn't bother with meta keywords at all. The primary drivers of traffic are links in, original content, and regular updates.
One of the most important things that people forget is labeling images correctly. If it's a shop, add as many images to as many products as you can. Different angles, different aspects of the product etc. Label them all correctly with the right words and Google will probably send you more traffic than if you didn't bother, or kept image names as standard number format.
I did a test and added meta keywords to about ten product pages, nothing changed with Google as far as I can tell.
Personally, I wouldn't bother with meta keywords at all. The primary drivers of traffic are links in, original content, and regular updates.
One of the most important things that people forget is labeling images correctly. If it's a shop, add as many images to as many products as you can. Different angles, different aspects of the product etc. Label them all correctly with the right words and Google will probably send you more traffic than if you didn't bother, or kept image names as standard number format.
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kendalcottages
Guest
Well said. META keyword tags have long since been insignificant, but there is still some significance to the META description tag.
For some meta tags are just for SE and they didnt see the real value of meta tags for visitor purposes.
To tell you honestly, I don't really use meta tags with my blogs, anymore. Not that they are not useful or so. However, for the description or the snippets, I just let Google pick up the snippets for me. I must admit, I'm not really good at creating description so I'd rather let Google do the job.
Sure the keyword meta data is of minimal importance these days but other meta data is still of vital importance.
Some of the meta data defines the type of markup on the page. This is obviously vital from a technical quality point of view.
There are also important meta tags relating to regions and character sets. Easy to add them so even if the benefit is small it's still worth doing.
And of course the description tag is still of utmost importance to an optimiser.
Some of the meta data defines the type of markup on the page. This is obviously vital from a technical quality point of view.
There are also important meta tags relating to regions and character sets. Easy to add them so even if the benefit is small it's still worth doing.
And of course the description tag is still of utmost importance to an optimiser.
Description tag is useful, especially for SERP snippets. As for any meta tag affecting ranking - doubtful.
I disagree. Google looks at the keyphrases in the description meta tag just as it does for page title and content. Therefore meta description does affect SERPs positions.
We tested this extensively across 100s of pages on three sites. We ranked them for six months without a description meta tag and then added the description meta tag. There was no increase in ranking seen. We saw an increase in clickthroughs, but that is because the descriptions were more attractive in the SERPS for people to read.
Fair enough - nice one for carrying out some primary research and your conclusions seem perfectly reasonable - I stand corrected.
The benefits I have seen must be from CTR from SERPs being improved by good descriptions.
Having said what I said previously in the thread, after four months I am only receiving organic results from Google. Yahoo, Bing... none of them send me any organic search traffic at all.
I didn't bother with meta keywords previously, and that's the only thing I can imagine stopping my site from showing in other SE's.
I didn't bother with meta keywords previously, and that's the only thing I can imagine stopping my site from showing in other SE's.
Then you have a very limited imagination!
No offense meant, just that I've been ranking sites for almost 10 years now and meta keywords went out about 8 years ago.If you're trying to rank for phrases like "car insurance" with some scraped text and 10 backlinks - you'll fail. For good phrases you need anything from 1000-100,000 backlinks to rank number one, plus excellent tailored content, plus a decent age.
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kendalcottages
Guest
Agreed. Just adding meta keyword tags will not make an iota of difference these days, and that's been the case for a long time now.
Meta Content is still vitally important!
Meta Title - This is very, very important it is essential that you have a quality meta title that informs visitors and search engines about your site! Meta titles are also brilliant for targeting long tail keywords!!
Meta description - This is also still important good meta descriptions are still used in google search results as the snippet, they are not so good for getting your site ranked, but a good meta description can be extremely helpful for both visitors and search engines.
Meta Keywords - I would not bother with keywords, tbh I would put one or two in there that are relevant because other search engines still use them!
Meta Title - This is very, very important it is essential that you have a quality meta title that informs visitors and search engines about your site! Meta titles are also brilliant for targeting long tail keywords!!
Meta description - This is also still important good meta descriptions are still used in google search results as the snippet, they are not so good for getting your site ranked, but a good meta description can be extremely helpful for both visitors and search engines.
Meta Keywords - I would not bother with keywords, tbh I would put one or two in there that are relevant because other search engines still use them!
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kendalcottages
Guest
Do you mean 'meta title'... or do you mean just the title tag? By 'meta title', do you mean 'meta subject'???
Agreed.
Then you have a very limited imagination!
Glad to know I'd gotten that right then! I had seen a lot of info on the relevance of meta keywords, but there are still some out there (claiming to be SEO experts) saying they are vital. :wacko:
I'm monitoring my keywords closely to see where they are getting me. And, like I said, I am ranking on page 1 for a couple of relevant keywords that are getting me traffic, but not for some very competitive keywords.
I have to admit that my on-site SEO has been a bit lacking. But I am working on it, so after only four months I don't think I'm doing too badly.
I still have to work out what Google means when it shows me the keywords it sees on my site. A couple of really good ones are almost to the top, and that's my goal at the moment; to increase on-site SEO to get those into the top positions of that list.
Still doesn't help me in appearing on other SE's though. For that I have no clue what I'm doing wrong.
Is it just that they are so slow in indexing?
Bing is infuriating me right now. Their PPC system is fantastic, much better than Google, and more helpful. But their webmaster tools are completely useless. They can't even find their own meta tag on my site for verification!
Sorry yes I just mean the title tag! It's just because I normally do the title at the same time as the Meta content, my mistake ;]
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kendalcottages
Guest
No worries... for a moment, I wondered if there was a meta tag I didn't know about.
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