meta question ?
 

I noticed that many sites use

It's debateable.. I personally believe larger SE's such as Yahoo and Google don't really do much with the META keywords just because they're so heavily abused.

On that note, I also think it can't hurt and the consequences far outweigh the possible benefits. It only takes five minutes any who :).

I've never used the "abstract" tag before and don't know whether it would improve ranking but I think it's similar to the description tag and the description tag is important.

___________
Clean Sites

the only search engines worth caring about are google & yahoo and neither one puts much emphasis on meta tags.

Meta Tags are a fundamental part of every html page

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/stru...l.html#h-7.4.4

Ignore the "made up" ones
Ignore people that say you don't need them
Use them... don't abuse them:)

DD

Sorry to disagree with you sir, but I do believe google and yahoo does. It's where they get the info for your link when your site appears on SEPRS. That's why it is advisable that you place keywords on your description, 'cause it's what people use to find your site. :)

i suggest that you dont focus more on meta instead focus more in getting quality backlinks for your site and updated content is always the key to rank better in search engines.

The keyword here is much, even if metatags only constitute 1% of the things google looks for when deciding where your page ranks for a certain word, for the sake of 3 minutes why shoot yourself in the foot by not including a brief description.

And even if you only got a couple of hundred hits a month off a lesser known search engine, if it uses metatags a lot taking that small amount of time to put some tags in could double your output from that engine.

As long as they aren't abused, there will be no negative effect from doing it, only positive.