Proper Use of Meta Keywords

[businessservicesuk]

lol, you muppet

Click on my signature link, check the source code, the do a search on www.google.com for the term 'business services' then come trotting back and tell all these good people you have been talking out of your hoop.

[cldnails]

Already did, and to be frank I'm not all that impressed.

To say that meta keyword has no effect would be stupid, while not as important as backlinks, it still plays a part. But, I suppose I concentrate on all SE's not just Google, call me old fashioned.

BTW, I'll happily claim the title of Animal.

[businessservicesuk]

As I am in a good mood I will give you some advice

3 meta tags

Title tags, this is important in regards to SEO, it should incorporate your main keyword(s) and be no longer than 65 characters, including spaces

Your tags
<title> Buy-Wii</title>
Is positioned in the wrong place, covers your main keywords but could be longer, I would incorporate the word Nintendo in there.

Description Tag
<meta name="description" content="Buy Wii is your #1 source for Nintendo Wii news. Here you can buy wii, buy wii games, buy wii accessories and ALWAYS in stock."/>

This is used by search engines as your copy for your listing, it should contain your main keywords, be no longer than 2 sentences, be readable, like a sales pitch, yours is keyword stuffed and written in poor English.

The keyword tag
<meta name="keywords" content="wii, buy wii, Nintendo, wii games, wii hardware, buy Nintendo, video games, games, mario, luigi, wiimote, nunchuck, nextgen"/>

This tag is still used by ask.com and Alta vista but holds no value in regards to SEO. If used this tag should not be packed with every keyword imaginable to do with your product/services.

In the 2 mins it has took me to evaluate your tags I notice, they need a little work with their content and the positioning within your source code.

Next!

The main problem with tags is they are copied throughout a website, this is very poor practise as each site should be viewed as unique

As your wii website only has one page as it is set up as a sort of bookmarking, affiliate adsense portal I cannot check further. However looking at your caffeine blog it is nice to see you have used individual tags, however once again they are poorly positioned, not well written and some title tags are too long.

Before putting the noose around your neck, do not despair, tags play a minute part in the organic ranking process, the main concern should be quality content, links and most importantly if you are trading as a business, a set of relevant terms and conditions....Damm

[cldnails]

Did you happen to look at my positioning for 'buy wii'.

But thanks, as to say that they hold NO value, as your previous statement was made...is silly. Thanks for taking the time to mention a few good points.

[tzd]

Google doesnt really pay attention to the keyword metadata, yahoo and msn do if im not mistaken.

[tzd]

by keyword metadata i mean the keywords tag.

[scottdizzle]

Well, from what I've gathered.. using meta stuff WON'T HURT and will definitely send you a small and sometimes even large % of traffic. So, those of you who don't wish to use meta information on your sites.. great.. those that would like to take all the traffic you're missing out on can do so without you in their way.

Trust me, I wish meta stuff was pointless.. it can be very cumbersome to keep up with.. but if I didn't fill it out 99% of my search results would look crappy. Especially description.. I've seen what it can look like without a meta description.. Search engines will just scrape any words off the page and throw them in your result.. even if it isn't coherent. So, would you rather being able to control what your readers view about the page before they see it.. or would you rather take the chance of garbled junk showing up? (In some cases, no description meant that the search engine description showed up as the text in my menu bar.. it looked dumb! It wasn't even sentences!)

The keywords may play a small part.. but they are definitely stored... maybe they are used 1% of the time.. well for the little amount of work it took me to add it in.. I'll take that 1% of traffic. Visitors are visitors, I'll take any that want to come along.

Google doesnt really pay attention to the keyword metadata, yahoo and msn do if im not mistaken.

I think it's more like.. Google doesn't pay nearly as much attention as other search engines.

[businessservicesuk]

I'm glad you viewed my comments as constructive, generally people have to pay for this kind of information/service.

My final point on the meta keyword tag is.

These are the comments from seomoz, I am sure everyone is aware they know a little on the subject of SEO

Which of the following is the least important area in which to include your keyword(s)?
Your Answer: Meta Keywords

Correct Answer: Meta Keywords

The meta keywords tag is least important among these because search engines do not consider it in ranking calculations and it's never seen by visitors or searchers (unlike the meta description tag, which displays beneath listings in the SERPs).

This mirrors my initial comment that it holds no value.

Researching and proving things can be difficult in the world of SEO, however in this instance it is very easy. Simply remove or do not have a meta keyword tag, then take note of any results.

The author of this thread may not be happy, but it at least readers of this thread will not be fed any more dis-information on this particular subject.

Don't worry about the green bar, do worry about trading legally.

[marthrock]

I have to echo BizUk in that they just dont have the oomph that they once did... However I was reprimanded pretty stoutly in another forum for saying that, when in doubt use meta tags. I still think you should, but with the understanding that within Google, they will do you no good...but..why ignore the SE's that still place a value on it? That would be like saying one armed people don't use it anymore but 2 armed people do, so I'm just going to concentrate on the ones that don't. I know google is the Playa, but hey why not get the stragglers if you can? As Im writing that, I'm envisioning people coming up late to a restaurant cause they saw the sign but have little or no money and are hungry.... you'll feed them and make little or no money....

We all want as much traffic as we can get, but I have heard without a doubt, that using metas, just doesnt have the same bang as it used to. My question would be When did it lose its luster? and did it ever have any type of weight? I imagine it did at one time but google saw what people were doing with it, and changed the algo..

[cldnails]

The thing is, it takes almost no additional effort in my current setup to add meta keywords to each individual pages, or even add one line of keywords to a sitewide meta tag.

So why not? This thread was just to get a better understanding of how SE's viewed the source, not debate meta keyword value. Since it has gone down that road I've realized there are some pretty arrogant SEO 'experts' trolling the forum, who think the only player in town is Google, without understanding someone elses business plan or where their highest converting traffic comes from.

Sharing experiences is great, stating blanket terms as though they are fact is ignorant.

generally people have to pay for this kind of information/service.

pffft, bwaahahahaaa

[businessservicesuk]

Anyone who thinks not having a keyword tag will hold them back they should have a look at the source code of del.icio.us

Another school of thought is this.

If sites have keyword tags crammed with keywords, they can suffer a small penalty as they are appear to be using spamming techniques. My own thoughts are they really can cause more harm than good.

But there is no point arguing the case, people will always have their own feelings on this subject. Rest assured if I thought my ranking was being affected in any of the major search engines, I would be the first to apply a basic (none crammed) keyword tag.

I imagine the only reason they were completely devalued was due to idiots thinking it was a test of how many on theme words they could fit in it.

What I do find is people get all excited about meta tags and sitemaps, they pay no attention to trading with a set of terms and conditions, having lots of unique content that is added to regularly combined with strong inbound links.....crazyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

[marthrock]

Thats always been my point, or just has been the "way" I always did it. 1. do the metas 2. do the alt tags 3. do the H1's etc etc... So although, the concensus is it's worthless, I'm still gonna do it perhaps with not as much gusto or effort; because you never know when the straggler might be Howard Hughes....

[tzd]

Danny Sullivan's thoughts on the Keywords tag: http://searchengineland.com/070905-194221.php

[businessservicesuk]

Good article, its offical its a crap tag...lol

cd is your keyword plugin working on mis-spelt keywords...lol

[tzd]

yup... I would still include them for "****s and giggles", i just wound't fret about them...