meta keywords for SEO

Bill · 2007-02-23, 07:39 PM

I think the second version is way more likly to bring you surfers than the first, altho I would say you should choose somewhat rarer keyphrases than those.

There's still debate ongoing about the whole spaces and/or commas thing, but it's hard to prove it makes that much difference.

There are other debates you'll also hear about the meta keywords tag, but it's a fairly weak tag.

I like to use it in the way I think it was originally intended, as a place to put _additional_ keywords, mispellings, and alternative spellings.

Linkster · 2007-02-23, 09:18 PM

More important - and deserves it own thread probably - is whether after the comma between phrase there should be a space or not

Go read Googles webmaster guidelines - it will tell you everything you need to know - that it doesnt matter one way or the other is fine - the closer you can make it to compliant html the better it is

BTW - there will be people that tell you that keywords dont matter to Google - they dont use them anyway - You have my permission (not that you need it) to yell BS as loud as you can cause they have started using them again

Licker4U · 2007-02-23, 09:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Linkster

Go read Googles webmaster guidelines...

Wherezat?

Linkster · 2007-02-24, 12:40 AM

http://www.google.com/support/webmas...y?answer=35769

Licker4U · 2007-02-24, 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Linkster

http://www.google.com/support/webmas...y?answer=35769

Thanks!

I also got a PM with another site to look at...time to read.

Bill · 2007-02-24, 04:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Linkster

More important - and deserves it own thread probably - is whether after the comma between phrase there should be a space or not

Even w3 seems a little confused about that...

http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#h-7.4.4

Gives these two examples on the same page:

<-- For speakers of US English -->
<META name="keywords" lang="en-us"
content="vacation, Greece, sunshine">
<-- For speakers of British English -->
<META name="keywords" lang="en"
content="holiday, Greece, sunshine">
<-- For speakers of French -->
<META name="keywords" lang="fr"
content="vacances, Grèce, soleil">

and

<HEAD profile="http://www.acme.com/profiles/core">
<TITLE>How to complete Memorandum cover sheets</TITLE>
<META name="author" content="John Doe">
<META name="copyright" content="© 1997 Acme Corp.">
<META name="keywords" content="corporate,guidelines,cataloging">
<META name="date" content="1994-11-06T08:49:37+00:00">
</HEAD>

What do you figure is the "approved" method, Linkster?

It's been considered a weak tag for a long time, so I don't think people cared all that much, and I've personally seen Yahoo respond with results for rare keywords in the tag using all three possible methods - space only, comma only, and comma space.

But with google's newish use of the metas, it may become more of an issue.

Halfdeck · 2007-02-24, 07:23 PM

Yahoo still indexes META keywords. The ranking boost, however, is marginal. META keywords are useful for targetting low hanging fruits, though ineffective when optimizing for competitive terms, because off-page factors in that case would overshadow any on-page factors, especially factors like META keywords tag or HTML comments that are invisible to surfers and are prone to spam attempts.

There's a powerful on-page factor you can use to nail a #1 position on Google for mildly competitive terms. Hint: it's not the META keyword tag.

A few words from Google:

Quote:

Next we have two name values: keywords, which these days is mostly useless, ironically, and description, which is still somewhat useful.

http://code.google.com/webstats/2005-12/metadata.html

The fact Google ignores META keywords is easy to test, though if you think you have examples that prove otherwise I'd love to see it.

META keywords is good for one thing. It's a great substitute for ICRA tags. Google uses words it finds in the META keywords tag to detect pages with adult images.

Bill · 2007-02-24, 07:45 PM

By low hanging fruits do you mean "easily accessible" (one of the meanings of that phrase) or "at the end of the branch"?

My model of how to use the keywords tag is to use it for rarer alternatives of your primary keywords, under the theory that it adds little to nothing to the ranking of the "real" keywords on the page.

I kinda figured Linkster was talking about the rumors of google using the metas as part of their newer spam detection algos.

Halfdeck · 2007-02-24, 08:27 PM

Quote:

By low hanging fruits do you mean "easily accessible" (one of the meanings of that phrase) or "at the end of the branch"?

By low hanging fruits, I mean queries that many people don't aggressively optimize for. For example, allintitle:britney shears returns only 281 results. Right now, that term should be relatively easy to rank for (in the worst case you'd start at 282nd in the SERP), as opposed to allintitle:free porn, which returns ~1,040,000 results.

Quote:

I kinda figured Linkster was talking about the rumors of google using the metas as part of their newer spam detection algos.

Oh, ok. I haven't heard anything about that. Google definitely doesn't ignore the META keywords tag. Of course, that's different from saying that using the META keywords tag improves Google ranking.

Linkster · 2007-02-24, 09:39 PM

I love it when people make up "facts"

Licker4U · 2007-02-25, 04:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Halfdeck

...Google definitely doesn't ignore the META keywords tag. Of course, that's different from saying that using the META keywords tag improves Google ranking.

I'm just starting to get into this stuff, but WTF did that mean?

If Google doesn't ignore meta keyword tags, that means Google uses them for something, and the only thing Google does is rank web sites. So, if Google doesn't ignore them, but they don't improve ranking, what does Google do with them?

2007-02-23, 09:18 PM	#2
Linkster NO! Im not a female - but being a dragon, I do eat them. Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Sex Delta Posts: 5,084	More important - and deserves it own thread probably - is whether after the comma between phrase there should be a space or not Go read Googles webmaster guidelines - it will tell you everything you need to know - that it doesnt matter one way or the other is fine - the closer you can make it to compliant html the better it is BTW - there will be people that tell you that keywords dont matter to Google - they dont use them anyway - You have my permission (not that you need it) to yell BS as loud as you can cause they have started using them again __________________ Pussy Chompers Porn Links NSCash

2007-02-24, 12:40 AM	#4
Linkster NO! Im not a female - but being a dragon, I do eat them. Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Sex Delta Posts: 5,084	http://www.google.com/support/webmas...y?answer=35769 __________________ Pussy Chompers Porn Links NSCash

2007-02-24, 09:39 PM	#10
Linkster NO! Im not a female - but being a dragon, I do eat them. Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Sex Delta Posts: 5,084	I love it when people make up "facts" __________________ Pussy Chompers Porn Links NSCash

2007-02-23, 07:39 PM	#1
Bill Selling porn allows me to stay in a constant state of Bliss - ain't that a trip! Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 3,914	I think the second version is way more likly to bring you surfers than the first, altho I would say you should choose somewhat rarer keyphrases than those. There's still debate ongoing about the whole spaces and/or commas thing, but it's hard to prove it makes that much difference. There are other debates you'll also hear about the meta keywords tag, but it's a fairly weak tag. I like to use it in the way I think it was originally intended, as a place to put _additional_ keywords, mispellings, and alternative spellings.

2007-02-24, 07:45 PM	#8
Bill Selling porn allows me to stay in a constant state of Bliss - ain't that a trip! Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 3,914	By low hanging fruits do you mean "easily accessible" (one of the meanings of that phrase) or "at the end of the branch"? My model of how to use the keywords tag is to use it for rarer alternatives of your primary keywords, under the theory that it adds little to nothing to the ranking of the "real" keywords on the page. I kinda figured Linkster was talking about the rumors of google using the metas as part of their newer spam detection algos.