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Meta Tags & Google Please Educate Me

by aerionmiles
21 replies
Hey Warriors,

My site Succeed With Pyxism is ranked on the 4th page currently on google, which is good hasnt been up long, growing in the rankings yada yada yada.

The problem I'm having is that in the description it still says

Welcome succeedwithpyxism.com - Hostmonster.com - 7 visits - 12:52am
This page parked courtesy of HostMonster - Web Hosting. cPanel Login | Domain Manager | Video Tutorials | Hostmonster Forum | CEO Blog ...
www.succeedwithpyxism.com/ - Cached -

That looks very bad to me and I wouldnt click on it even on the first page of google.

From what Im seeing google hasnt been back to my page since January 5th. Is there a tool I can check that for sure?

What can I do to change that on my site? Where would I edit meta tags or if someone could point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it. Thanks
#educate #google #meta #tags
  • Profile picture of the author MrDay
    Doesn't your cpanel show you all the visits from the search engine spiders, including Google?

    Also, get some backlinks from some high PR relevant sites and the search spiders will visit more often.

    Here's a couple links that should help you out, Changing your site's title and description in search results and How to use HTML meta tags

    cheers!
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  • Profile picture of the author mojo100
    Is it hosted on free webspace?
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  • Profile picture of the author VegasGreg
    Add a description tag to your site for starters.

    Then bookmark/ping the site a few times and then give Google a week or two to update the descriptions on their search results.
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    Greg Schueler - Wordpress Fanatic... Living The Offline Marketing Dream...

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  • Profile picture of the author mojo100
    The format for the descrition tag is
    <metaname="description" content="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"/>
    Fill out the xxxxx with your description
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    MoJo

    **Attn Newbies ** The Absolute BEGINNERS Guide to Building a Website - FREE
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  • Profile picture of the author aerionmiles
    Yes it's a hosted site with hostmonster. Thanks for the quick replys. Im going to add a description tag right now. I have backlinks so that's why Im unsure if they are lpassing on to my website so google can index me again. I will start with adding a description. Thanks again
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    No Hype, No Fluff, Real Internet Marketing Results

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    • Profile picture of the author Killer Joe
      From your website...

      "Travel is part of an $8 trillion dollar industry and accounts for 53% of income made on the internet. "

      Really?...

      KJ
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  • Profile picture of the author mojo100
    Just one other tip my sister had exactly the same problem with her website for a holiday rental. It turned out she was using some shared webspace and some complicated forwarding.
    We bought another piece of web space and transferred the domain name and it fixed the problem.
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    MoJo

    **Attn Newbies ** The Absolute BEGINNERS Guide to Building a Website - FREE
    How to Build My Own Free Website
    http://www.buildmyownfreewebsite.com
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  • Profile picture of the author aerionmiles
    Well I went in and changed my meta tags but nothing still has changed. It's showing okay in yahoo on page 11 but currently im ranked #1 in Google but it looks so unprofessional. Any more ideas? Would my hosting account (hostmonster) have anything to do with it?
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    No Hype, No Fluff, Real Internet Marketing Results

    I love to travel, especially when it's cheap and I get paid to do it.
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    • Profile picture of the author VegasGreg
      Originally Posted by aerionmiles View Post

      Well I went in and changed my meta tags but nothing still has changed. It's showing okay in yahoo on page 11 but currently im ranked #1 in Google but it looks so unprofessional. Any more ideas? Would my hosting account (hostmonster) have anything to do with it?
      It's only been 5 days or less since you made changes. It may take up to 2 weeks before you see changes in Google. It depends on how often they crawl your site and update your cache.
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      Greg Schueler - Wordpress Fanatic... Living The Offline Marketing Dream...

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  • Profile picture of the author VegasGreg
    Actually on closer look, you still don't have a "description" meta tag on your site. So don't expect any changes.
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    Greg Schueler - Wordpress Fanatic... Living The Offline Marketing Dream...

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  • Profile picture of the author TheRichJerksNet
    google no longer uses the meta tag "keywords" or the meta tag "description" .. Google takes the description from the text on the site, you know the content. This is why it is very important to have your content with keywords in it as close to the top of the page as possible.

    Do I still use meta tags ? Yes I do and I will continue to do so but google no longer uses them to index or rank your site.

    James
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    • Profile picture of the author aerionmiles
      So I guess I need to be patient
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      No Hype, No Fluff, Real Internet Marketing Results

      I love to travel, especially when it's cheap and I get paid to do it.
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      • Profile picture of the author TheRichJerksNet
        Originally Posted by aerionmiles View Post

        So I guess I need to be patient
        One of the problems is your site has no content ... No content, it is going to be all that much harder to get google love. Google is depending upon your content to create your listings. While backlinks are king these days and those backlinks determine your rankings, quality and informative content still plays an important role on those rankings and listings.

        James
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    • Profile picture of the author dave147
      [DELETED]
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      • Profile picture of the author TheRichJerksNet
        Originally Posted by dave147 View Post

        Are you sure about that?
        Yep positive ...

        Google's algorithm now picks up matching lines/phrases in the page content related to the search query and displays selective parts of that content on the SERPs snippets.

        Yahoo still uses the meta keyword tag but google does not, google looks at your page content..

        James
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    • Profile picture of the author VegasGreg
      Originally Posted by TheRichJerksNet View Post

      google no longer uses the meta tag "keywords" or the meta tag "description" .. Google takes the description from the text on the site, you know the content. This is why it is very important to have your content with keywords in it as close to the top of the page as possible.

      Do I still use meta tags ? Yes I do and I will continue to do so but google no longer uses them to index or rank your site.

      James
      If you add a description tag, Google does still use that to display on the SERPs, if there is no description tag, it will use something else from the actual content.

      The tags do not factor into the rankings, but the description tag still plays a factor in how the search result displays.

      All my sites show my exact description tag on the serps, though the exact same description/phrase is often not listed anywhere on my site.

      So I guess I need to be patient
      That and add a description tag. With very minimal content on the site, Google won't really know what to add for your site.
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      Greg Schueler - Wordpress Fanatic... Living The Offline Marketing Dream...

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    • Profile picture of the author Kooza
      Originally Posted by TheRichJerksNet View Post

      google no longer uses the meta tag "keywords" or the meta tag "description" .. Google takes the description from the text on the site, you know the content. This is why it is very important to have your content with keywords in it as close to the top of the page as possible.

      Do I still use meta tags ? Yes I do and I will continue to do so but google no longer uses them to index or rank your site.

      James
      Are you able to point to any official Google documentation stating Google does not use meta description tags in it's SERP's? It's a pretty common belief in the SEO world that Google does use the meta description tag. In fact Google will choose which piece of content is most relevant to the search query whether that be the meta description or content within the page.

      If Google completely ignored the meta description tag I doubt they would go to the trouble of providing reporting on it in Google Webmaster Tools and recommending each page have a unique meta description tag.
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      • Profile picture of the author TheRichJerksNet
        Keyword Meta Tags and Google - Website Magazine - Website Magazine

        SEO is drastically changing.. Keyword Density is no longer look at like people think it is either. I will state it again, this is 2010 and the year of social media.

        Search engines will be more focused on Backlinks, Quality Content, and Social Validation for their rankings.

        Yes keywords are important and yes you need onsite seo but many things are no longer looked at now like they was years ago..

        I guess I should state I tested this with a site that has no meta data at all .. It ranks top listing with no trouble..

        James

        Originally Posted by Kooza View Post

        Are you able to point to any official Google documentation stating Google does not use meta description tags in it's SERP's? It's a pretty common belief in the SEO world that Google does use the meta description tag. In fact Google will choose which piece of content is most relevant to the search query whether that be the meta description or content within the page.

        If Google completely ignored the meta description tag I doubt they would go to the trouble of providing reporting on it in Google Webmaster Tools and recommending each page have a unique meta description tag.
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  • Profile picture of the author aerionmiles
    Thanks Greg,

    I thought I did, I must have put it in the wrong place. I will go back and try again. Thanks again.
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    No Hype, No Fluff, Real Internet Marketing Results

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  • Profile picture of the author Kooza
    It seems you may have misread my post, I was referring to the meta description tag being used in the SERP's. I think it is safe to say that it is widely accepted that the meta keyword tag is completely ignored by the SE's, that's not what I was referring to.

    Keyword Density is no longer look at like people think it is either.
    I am also not sure what keyword density has to do with my original post either? Anyhow seen as you brought it up I agree that this is not as important as it used to be.

    I guess I should state I tested this with a site that has no meta data at all .. It ranks top listing with no trouble.
    I never stated that a site would not rank without a meta description tag, in fact it likely has very little impact on rankings.

    Google takes the description from the text on the site, you know the content.
    I was simply responding to this comment as I believe Google does use the meta description tag in it's SERP's until you can prove me otherwise

    But I agree SEO is changing, "drastically" may be a slight exaggeration though. The goal posts have been constantly changing and new things have come along such as social media however it is still about obtaining quality links and probably will be for some time.

    All the best!
    Mike.
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    • Profile picture of the author TheRichJerksNet
      The meta description and keyword both are very important to keep. I was just referencing the fact that they are not needed for "google" .... With that said both are still used for social bookmarking along with many other sites that auto pulls your info.

      Thus having both is still very important. As for other SEO stuff was just pointing out the fact that most SEO that once was looked at is no longer looked at or not factored in as much I should say ...

      While I will not claim to be an SEO Expert (because I do not think such a thing exist) I do massive amounts of testing on many different levels. This is what I suggest others do .. Test and see what works for you ...

      James

      Originally Posted by Kooza View Post

      It seems you may have misread my post, I was referring to the meta description tag being used in the SERP's. I think it is safe to say that it is widely accepted that the meta keyword tag is completely ignored by the SE's, that's not what I was referring to.


      I am also not sure what keyword density has to do with my original post either? Anyhow seen as you brought it up I agree that this is not as important as it used to be.


      I never stated that a site would not rank without a meta description tag, in fact it likely has very little impact on rankings.


      I was simply responding to this comment as I believe Google does use the meta description tag in it's SERP's until you can prove me otherwise

      But I agree SEO is changing, "drastically" may be a slight exaggeration though. The goal posts have been constantly changing and new things have come along such as social media however it is still about obtaining quality links and probably will be for some time.

      All the best!
      Mike.
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