Meta tags

[gissle]

Are META tags worth incorporating into my site for SEO?

I have read various things that imply they are essential, but have also read that most search engines disregard them.

Can anyone clarify?

 

[nitro23456]

Meta keywords and description are no longer used as a ranking signal and havent been for some time, but this doesnt mean you shouldnt use them.

For example, the description is one of the best ways of enticing someone to click on your listing in a google search rather than someone who ranks above you.

 

[Creativesnaps Photography]

I would still use them it may help your images get found on Google, and it helps tell people what things are, Google wont give you any extra credit on ranking for Alt tags but yahoo does take them into account on low level.

 

[open sesame]

I tend to optimise my meta desc for increasing CTR.

 

[HenriettaRonsons]

Meta title is still playing a huge role in ranking of your site.

The six biggest mistakes you can make when creating a meta title for your page are:

1. Not creating any page title at all;
2. Making titles too long. Long page titles are truncated and search engines stop reading after a certain number of characters. Limit your title to 75 characters maximum (including spaces and punctuation.)
3. Naming your page the same name as your website or business name;
4. Naming all your pages the same name, or something similar to each other;
5. Naming the page without connecting it to your content and other meta data; and
6. Repeating (spamming) keywords in titles.

 

[sigmais]

meta tag is ignored by the top search engine because the SE technology now can detect the keyword without reading the meta tag. You can totally forget about it. However, the meta title and meta description is still playing important role in onpage SEO

 

[trevord92]

Your title is the blue clickable link in the search results so that's very important.

If you're listed in Dmoz then it's worth adding the noodp meta tag
<meta name="robots" content="noodp">
otherwise Google will use your (likely boring) Dmoz title instead.

Meta description will usually be used as the description in the search results (unless Google thinks it can suggest a better one) so that's also important.

 

[eastvantage]

I'm still using meta tags for my website. SEO is unpredictable and tricky that's why I don't just set aside old SEO rules. Keeping them won't hurt us anyway, right?

 

[Horton_Sakaria]

I would echo the advise given above, also make good use of h1 (One 4 each page),h2,h3, p tags throughout your site.

 

[Ninja Commerce]

Hi Gissle

The only meta tag I really worry about for SEO is the description.

In case you don't know, when you do a search on Google, the info the is contained in an individual search result is the page title and the meta description of that specific page (assuming is has them).

People will tell you that description doesn't matter; and it is true that the meta description does not directly factor into the algorythm...

But if you craft your title and description carefully you can have a big impact on click through rate in the SERPs when your site does rank. There is strong evidence to suggest that this will improve your rankings indriectly + higher ctr means more traffic, so it's a no brainer really.

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Just as a warning though, make sure your content matches what you describe with your title and description. Not doing so will result in bounces; which could hurt your rankings.

So title and description; I wouldn't worry too much about anything else unless you want to start getting more technical.