Different meta tags

[TanyaMartin]

Reviewing sites today, I ran across some different meta tags.
(nice way to put checking out the competition)

<META NAME="RANK-WORDS" VALUE="keyword1, keyword2, etc">
<META NAME="RANK-DOCUMENT" VALUE="+2">

Some pages had -2

This site was ranked #1 for the keyword I was reviewing. Is it just an extra way to stuff keywords or something of value?

[kwvarga]

what was the keyword that they ranked #1 for?

[Fruit & Veg]

It's wishful thinking and doesn't mean a thing.

[SVB]

Google doesnt care about meta tags anyway, so it wouldnt matter

[kwvarga]

they do.. but not in a signifigant matter..
http://www.internet-marketing-resear..._meta_tags.php

[SVB]

Hmm. Well, the only way they use it is in this anchor text business, but I doubt that adding extra meta tags will add to the rankings.

[TanyaMartin]

Why would you exclude using meta tags? There still are SE's that use them. And Google still does even.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&i...&q=Pops+A+Dent

#1 listing. I looked, it didn't look like any of his other pages were ranked high for the product name. But I didn't look through them all.

[SVB]

You woiuldnt exlude, you just wouldnt add extra meta tags for ranking in google. Of the few search engines that still use them, Altavista is one, which is quite popular, so suppose that is a reason. And that #1 ranking is more to do with the pagename and title tag than any meta tags.

[janeth]

Google said they did not use meta tags.

[spidersam]

Originally Posted by unrealfragmaster

Google doesnt care about meta tags anyway, so it wouldnt matter

that's what i understood

[TanyaMartin]

But they do, put a site up with no text and just meta tags. You will find they will use them.

[janeth]

From Google's Director of Technology, Craig Silverstein.

the Googlebot pays a lot more attention to page content that visitors can see rather than things people can't see. That?s the reason why Google dropped meta tags.

[TanyaMartin]

I'm sure it does. But it does still use them.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&i...&q=Livemercial First listing, first 2 lines came from the description tag. It isn't on the page in Text at all.

They may not use them ALL the time like they use to, but they still use them.

[alpha3m]

interesting. it'd be interesting to see if random meta tags with random discriptions would do anything.

Im leaning towards no, but who knows :-p

[compar]

Originally Posted by TanyaMartin

I'm sure it does. But it does still use them.

Google uses the meta description for the SERP description in certain circumstances. But to the best of everyone's knowledge and from what they say themselves they do not use them in judging the relevance of a page or it's place in the SERPs.

So please be more specific when you say Google uses them. Uses them how?

[RonHollingsworth]

Originally Posted by compar

Google uses the meta description for the SERP description........they do not use them in judging the relevance of a page or it's place in the SERPs.

Exactly....I've seen sites that use no meta tags other than the title and still rank #1, however they do have a *hit load of incoming links for that keyword.

[RonHollingsworth]

sorry for the double post

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by TanyaMartin

But they do, put a site up with no text and just meta tags. You will find they will use them.

Google certainly does not use meta-tags for ranking purposes.

I ran a proof at SEO lab:
http://www.seo-lab.com/seo-lab-tests/meta-tags/

[John Scott]

Brian,

Google may indeed not use meta description tags, but just because a page doesn't rank for that term when it is only used in the meta description tag does not prove this.

It is entirely possible (perhaps unlikely, but still possible) that Google considers the content of the meta description tag only when those words are also appearing on the page.

http://www.internet-marketing-resear..._meta_tags.php

I personally do not use meta description tags most of the time. Ink does use them, but I consider the benefit to be too little considering the time it takes to write them.

[TanyaMartin]

I'm sorry if you thought I meant they use them for SERP's. I meant they will use them if nothing else is on the page. Like the description example I showed you.

I don't believe it is a good statement to make that Meta Tags do not matter. They still do. They have their purpose.

I think Yahoo relies on them more and other SE still use them, why would you bother to make a page and not optimize it to the fullest.