by sam236
24 replies
  • SEO
  • |
Can someone tell me if google is the only search engine that skips the meta tags? I need someone to help me on this.
#google #meta #meta tags #search engine #tags
  • Profile picture of the author jimkirk1943
    Are you sure googe skips these tags ??? I thought they held less weight but that they skip them is new to me ? How do you know this im interested
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  • Profile picture of the author ezestseo
    Yes, you are right "jimkirk1943". Meta tags held less weight age but we can't ignore to them.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jesus Carrera
      Google still read that tags, you can know it for sure because the meta description, often is used as the description in the search results. For SEO they were important in the past, they aren't as important as other factors nowadays.
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  • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
    When if comes to Google, Yahoo and Bing...

    All of them use the Title.

    All of them may use the Description to display in search results but this isn't given. How much impact this plays in actual ranking isn't quite as clear but it may affect click through.

    Keywords is ignored by Google or Yahoo. Bing says that they may consider it as a minor factor in determining relevance.
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    • Profile picture of the author jimkirk1943
      Originally Posted by bgmacaw View Post


      Keywords is ignored by Google or Yahoo. Bing says that they may consider it as a minor factor in determining relevance.
      Bgmacaw are you saying that the keyword section in all in one seo plugin is not worth filling in ?
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      • Profile picture of the author crudenbay
        Originally Posted by jimkirk1943 View Post

        Bgmacaw are you saying that the keyword section in all in one seo plugin is not worth filling in ?
        Google pays no attention to the keywords meta tag...that's come from Matt Cutts (Google guru) himself.
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        • Profile picture of the author paulgl
          Well, the title tag is not a meta tag.

          Google skips the meta keywords. I can't believe anyone worth their
          salt in SEO did not know that.

          They may, with a huge emphasis on MAY, show your meta desription in
          the SERPS if they feel it is truthful and useful. Many times, they don't.
          And they don't use it for any rankings. Google makes this perfectly clear.

          Forget metas. The future is HTML5 and other things. metas are going the
          way of the dinosaur. And IF you have no idea of the exciting things of
          HTML5, well get busy, man!

          Past: metas
          Future: Rich snippets!

          Paul
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          If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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        • Profile picture of the author FredJones
          My understanding is that Google takes a notice of the meta tag and does count it in the SEO context. How much? Not much. But do they count meta tags at all? Yes, I believe.

          Just my own ideas - need not match with anyone else's.
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          • Profile picture of the author Dani P
            From what I've read, they dont ignore them but they do hold less weight now.

            ....and has a bit of proof, I've never had meta descriptions and my site wasnt in the search results at all, I've put it titles, descriptions and keywords and my results have definately improved.
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            • Profile picture of the author adenclark
              The title and description tags certainly do make a difference. When someone types in a keyword related to your site, if your site is listed, the keyword will highlight which is why your description should be relevant to your content as well as the backlinks you are building to that specific listing.

              As for keyword meta, this is of very little use but you should make sure all is highly relevant anyway and if using a blog, i always put in keyword tags, as well as the same keywords within the seo pack.

              Hope this helps.
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              • Profile picture of the author paulgl
                BUT TITLE IS NOT AS META TAG!

                Google ignores the meta keywords and description for rankings.

                If you really believe they count for something, than you are using
                them for old fashioned directories, not google.

                If you have never seen a meta description NOT in the serps, you
                have not been around long or search for much.

                Do a search for warrior forum without quotes. The second
                listing will be the old warrior forum site. warriorforum.com/forum.
                No meta description is quoted. Because there is none.

                Do a search for hasbro. Near the top, their star wars clone site
                shows up. Notice the listing? Now check the site out.

                Do a search for star wars toys.
                Hasbro's site comes up first. Notice what is listed in the serp?

                Completely different words on both searches. Neither listing quotes the
                meta description for the star wars site.

                Now you know the rest of the story. Depending on what you search for,
                that is what determines what google shows. Sometimes the description,
                sometimes something else to show the searcher what is on the page.

                Now, I just gave away a secret that I use all the time. I'll let you figure out
                how to exploit it.

                Paul
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                If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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    • Profile picture of the author Kurt
      Originally Posted by bgmacaw View Post

      When if comes to Google, Yahoo and Bing...

      All of them use the Title.

      All of them may use the Description to display in search results but this isn't given. How much impact this plays in actual ranking isn't quite as clear but it may affect click through.

      Keywords is ignored by Google or Yahoo. Bing says that they may consider it as a minor factor in determining relevance.
      The title tag isn't a meta tag. It's one of the four essential html elements of a web page. Meta tags are optional.

      Meta tags can acutally hurt if they are identical across your site. This needs to be defined so we don't confuse people and think that title tags are meta tags and are useless, as we both know the Title tags is probably the single most important SEO element for on-page.

      My adice, if you have a big site, forget meta tags, they are not worth it. If you have a small site, go ahead and add them.
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  • Profile picture of the author DuaneZ
    My thought is this, it takes next to no time to add the META's in so I just do it because you never know what will or will not change in the future.

    A couple years ago I saw a post (in some other forum) about not adding alt tags to photos and a lot of people were saying they would not anymore to save on time.

    Again, how long does it take to add a couple tags to photos, I still get traffic from photos that convert to sales and I often think about this old post I saw and these people who were not getting extra traffic as a result.
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  • Profile picture of the author 4you
    very nice subect, i'm doing seo and this is very helpful (;
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  • How can anyone who does not work for Team Google know exactly what Google is or is not considering in their search Algorithm?
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
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      • Profile picture of the author paulgl


        Searching for star wars toys gives a different looking listing than Yukon's
        above. Same site, different looking listing. The meta description of the
        site is actually star wars clone wars. Notice google lists more in the
        one above. Notice it's not even in Yukon's listing.

        You can use this to your advantage, if you are willing to think outside
        the box.

        Paul
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        If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
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    • Profile picture of the author cagliostro
      Meta Tags (keywords and description) are still used, no matter what some "gurus" say.

      They are also very much used from Google Adsense Bot to display relevent ads for your website.
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  • Profile picture of the author jhonsean
    Google normally crawls meta tags for their own information to your descriptions site as you can see its visible when searching your site but still less important its the off page optimization weights.
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      I hear you Yukon...but the meta description is not quoted in your image.
      Which was my point. Search for hasbro, and the star wars page shows #2,
      minus the meta. Search for star wars toys, google adds something to it.
      Use both of these situations to your advantage.

      Look at the second listing in your image. It's the hasbro star wars site. The same
      site in my search. In your search, it is not an indented listing. It is a separate
      listing.

      At least we can agree that google will add something if it feels necessary. Your
      meta description is not a gimme for google. I should also point out that if your site
      was put in the DMOZ, whatever description you submitted may actually show up as
      well.

      Paul
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      If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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