Metatags

[Furlongs]

A freind asked me to help him w/his metatags. I think we have too many keywords. If anyone gets achance can you check this over? Thanks

<META Name="description" Content="Philadelphia Photographer David Moser. Photography for corporate annual reports, advertising, magazine and editorial. Photographs On Location">
<META Name="keywords" Content="corporate photographer, philadelphia area photographer, corporate, event photographer, photography, portraits, delaware valley, public relations, event photographs,magazine,David Moser, Dave Moser, Dave Moser Photography, Philly Photographer, Philadelphia Photographer Digital,Professional, Philadelphia Editorial Photography,Press Releases,Philadelphia Annual Report Photographer Advertising Editorial Photographer,
Portraits, Brochure,Commercial Photography,Corporate Headshots,Philadelphia Corporate Photography,Location Photographer,Headshots, Assignment Photographer,Philadelphia Assignment ASMP, EP,Lifestyle Photography,Magazine Photography,International Assignments,Environmental Photography,Portraiture,Portrait Photography,PR Industrial Executive Portraits,Philadelphia Executive Portraiture, Philadelphia People Photography,Philadelphia Fine Art Photographer,corporate Reportage">

[cbp]

It dosen't matter - they are largely irrevalant anyway.

BUT - I usually never have more than one or two words.

CBP

[adacprogramming]

The few engines that still use the Keywords metatag only use the first 60 or so characters, anything else is just there to confuse the spiders.

Google is starting to use the description metatag almost word for word so make sure that one counts.

[thebloke]

MSN considers more than 3 commas in the keyword tag as spam.

I'm testing removing all commas and just using a handful of relevant keywords.

[dburdon]

Furlongs,

I disagree with CBP - although I know where he's coming from.

Meta tags still count if you know how to use them. Send me a PM and I'll send you an analysis of your pet supplies site.

David Burdon

[ctabuk]

Whereas DBurdon is trying to help out here, the first poster was not asking for a report on his site, he was asking whether or not the metatags on the site he is working on are too over the top. The whole question of tags has been subject to debate for many years in WPW, originally sites were viewed by spiders for their description tags, these days the spiders look for 'keywords' based on search terms that appear in your text/content. Providing you avoid over use of your keywords and the use of commas or any @& etc and concentrate on keeping the pages updated and to constantly check for broken links etc then the tags are indeed largely irrelevant. I still would not like to see a site without them though - if that makes sense.

[onelife]

As mentioned in other posts Keywords aren't weighted that highly these days, but I still use them but only for a few targetted keywords.

I kinda work on the principal that the more words used the more diluted your key search term will be.

Cheers!

Dave

[dburdon]

I believe that meta tags are perhaps the most misunderstood part of SEO. At one extreme you have the "keyword stuffers" stuck in the dark ages. At the other extreme you have the "off page only" and "nothing but Google" brigade who believe that meta tags are ignored by the engines and are therefore irrelevant.

Think of the meta tags section as a copy brief. Then think of it as a precis of the site. Keep it lean and simple. Use it a discipline when writing and reviewing the copy. The key concept to adhere to is alignment. Make sure the meta tags and the actual content of the page are consistent.

Furlongs, I was offering you an analysis of the pets site as it shows some striking information.

[ctabuk]

DBurdon, then you should post it here in the forum. If you see something that will benefit us all, you must post it.

[davebarnes]

Too many keywords.

A friend of mine is a photographer and has also spent a lot of time analyzing what works and does not work for him vis à vis Google.

His tags:

  <title>Commercial Photographer Chris Kokias Denver Colorado</title>
  <meta name="Description" content="Chris Kokias commercial photographer Denver, Colorado, provides professional photography of products, people and events for use in product catalogs, advertising, websites and annual reports.">
  <meta name="keywords" content="commercial photographer, commercial photography, professional photographer, professional photography, product photographer, product photography, advertising photographer, event photographer, denver, colorado, kokias">

,dave

[Webnauts]

I use meta keyword tags to confuse the competition and make Yahoo happy. The only meta tag I am still missing, is the ICRA one, and that only to enhance my site accessibility. Will implement though in the next days.

More: http://www.icra.org/about/

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by dburdon

Meta tags still count if you know how to use them. Send me a PM and I'll send you an analysis of your pet supplies site.

David would you send me an analysis for web site too? :)

[dburdon]

WN,

its a long time back. I'll see if I've still got the file.

[scanmonkey]

Originally Posted by adacprogramming

Google is starting to use the description metatag almost word for word so make sure that one counts.

Google and MSN are using the meta description tag when the "search term" is in description.

Doesn't seem that yahoo is using the description tag.

Keywords should be contained in your page content or may be considered keyword spam.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by scanmonkey

Keywords should be contained in your page content or may be considered keyword spam.

Here is an excellent tool you can check those issues: http://www.submitexpress.com/analyzer/

[Steven1976a]

For your home page I would personally use about 25 words/phrases and for pages within the site keep it very specific to that page.

Why would the search engines take no notice of the Meta tags? Its crazy to think they are ignored completely surely a site with good keywords relating to the content of that specific page would gain some extra points against a site that doesnt use them. Take away a piece of the jigsaw and i dont think you will have a perfect picture.

I would say keep it to about 20-25 keywords and only use words that are relevant to your body text of that page so that they cross reference with each other.

[greeneagle]

Is the "Title" tag overstuffed also?

Ken

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by greeneagle

Is the "Title" tag overstuffed also?

Ken

I think so too. That looks to me like a description and not a title. In general, it is recommended to use max. 100 characters including spaces. Our member here is using 141.

Good point Ken. :)

[ravikanth]

Title tag:

• 1. Major SEs dispalys a max of 60 to 70 chars.
  2. Should start with main keyword of that page and definitely match with H1 tag.
  3. If possible use 100 percent keyword density.

Description:

• 1. Use 150 chars max.
  2. Start with main keyword and should have sales pitch or info. Just like Google Adcopy. Pick such line from content itself, and make small modifications if needed.
  3. Don't repeat keywords more than twice.

Keywords:

• 1. Don't stuff this tag with keywords not related to the page. Use a max of 5 to 6 phrases
  2. Don't repeat any word more than thrice.
  3. Follow a structure, i.e Page main kwd, supporting kwd1, supporting kwd2,.., Site main kwd. More relevancy will be there if supporting kwds appear in H2, bold tags.. in the copy.

[linn_comel]

I am a new learner..So what is the best criteria for metatag.

[greeneagle]

linn comel,

Welcome aboard WPW.

You guys were probably posting about the same time.

Member "ravikanth" answered your question very well - In the post just prior yours.

Ken

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by ravikanth

Title tag:

• 1. Major SEs dispalys a max of 60 to 70 chars.
  2. Should start with main keyword of that page and definitely match with H1 tag.
  3. If possible use 100 percent keyword density.

It doesn't matter how characters the SE's display. Write the title tag so it makes sense for your end users, number of characters and the density of it doesn't matter. I do agree that having your target keyword s far in front of it as possible doe help.

Originally Posted by ravikanth

Description:

• 1. Use 150 chars max.
  2. Start with main keyword and should have sales pitch or info. Just like Google Adcopy. Pick such line from content itself, and make small modifications if needed.
  3. Don't repeat keywords more than twice.

Once again characters doesn't matter, but I generally just write mine one sentence long and don't even think about the characters. Sure repeating keywords is not a good idea here as it isn't in the title tag.

Originally Posted by ravikanth

Keywords:

• 1. Don't stuff this tag with keywords not related to the page. Use a max of 5 to 6 phrases
  2. Don't repeat any word more than thrice.
  3. Follow a structure, i.e Page main kwd, supporting kwd1, supporting kwd2,.., Site main kwd. More relevancy will be there if supporting kwds appear in H2, bold tags.. in the copy.

I don't even use them anymore, unless they can help with the clients internal search engine.