Keywords, commas, spaces

[minstrel]

Leaving aside, for the moment, the question of how important keywords are or are not for various search engines... if you use keywords, is it better to use comma-space, comma-no-space, or space-no-comma?

Doing some quick research tonight, I found contradictory answers:

Discussion thread (http://jimworld.com/apps/webmaster.forums/action::thread/thread::733/forum::keyword-research/)

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum8/319.htm

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum8/331-2-15.htm

http://www.101register.org/meta_keywords_tags.htm

http://web-bureau.com/modules/keywords.php

It seems that for every opinion, there is an opposite opinion.

[rlrouse]

I have used all of those formats from time to time in attempts to determine which is best. I don't think it makes any difference at all. Now I simply use commas with no spaces.

[janeth]

I herd the spaces count just like it was a letter so not using the spaces lets you use more key words.

But a lot of search engines ignore them all togeather so I do no think it really matters a whole lot either way.

[softwaresubmit]

As far as I can tell, the keywords must be separated by commas to distinguish them. "key1a key1b,key2" (two keywords) is not the same as "key1a key1b key2" (one keyword) nor "key1a,key1b,key2" (three keywords).

[minstrel]

As far as I can tell, the keywords must be separated by commas to distinguish them. "key1a key1b,key2" (two keywords) is not the same as "key1a key1b key2" (one keyword) nor "key1a,key1b,key2" (three keywords).
That's pretty much my logic, since without commas how can you specifiy a keyphrase rather than a keyword? But even if you get past that, there is the issue of spaces...

Note: this presumably doesn't only apply to the META tag for keywords but also for image <alt> tags...

[rlrouse]

That's pretty much my logic, since without commas how can you specifiy a keyphrase rather than a keyword?

A list of keywords separated only by spaces is treated as one long keyphrase (and isn't very useful).

[softwaresubmit]

without commas how can you specifiy a keyphrase rather than a keyword?

Yes... a keyphrase. That's the word I was missing :-)

[EdRust]

I have heard, but unfortunitly have not been able to verify, that some spiders prefer the pipe | as a seperator over commas.

anyone else have any info on using pipes?

[softwaresubmit]

W3C recommends commas in HTML 4.01 specification:

Some indexing engines look for META elements that define a comma-separated list of keywords/phrases, or that give a short description. Search engines may present these keywords as the result of a search. The value of the name attribute sought by a search engine is not defined by this specification. Consider these examples,

<META name="keywords" content="vacation,Greece,sunshine">

More info: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/appendix/notes.html#recs

[minstrel]

W3C recommends commas in HTML 4.01 specification:

<META name="keywords" content="vacation,Greece,sunshine">[/i][/color]

So: commas but no spaces in that example... I guess that answers the question?

[Electronic Perceptions]

I've never tested one way against another, but I have always used commas and spaces, and ranked well for many years.

In the image alt tags, I put a descriptive sentence like I would for the image caption. Putting keywords into the alt tag has always irritated me when I saw it on other sites, and I feel it's a form of spamming. Same goes for keywords and phrases in the title tags... I hate that :(