Is using the full range of META tags successful with search engines?

[christylh]

This may sound a bit vauge but what META tags will encourage repeat visits and archiving from search engines? For example does the Robots META tag truly help increase hits?

Thanks!

Christy

[encyclo]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com], christylh.

The only time you need to use a robots meta tag is to exclude robots from indexing or following links on a page. If you want everything to be indexed and followed, you don't need it at all.

In terms of SEO, the description meta tag can be useful as it is sometimes used as the snippet under the URL in the results, but that's all. There are no other meta tags which have any effect whatsoever on how often your site will be crawled. For good results, you need good on-page content and especially lots of inbound links.

[ncw164x]

And a good page Title

[jetboy_70]

Yahoo stated at March's New York SES that meta keywords would be considered in the (then new) Yahoo algo.

[PatrickDeese]

I believe that the reference is to "urban legend" tags such as:

<meta name="revisit-after" content="7 days">

They don't work. Not one major search engine supports them, nor has ever supported them.

The search engine bots will index your pages on their schedule, not yours.

[ncw164x]

yeah this one was abused but to no avail.

I have even seen

<meta name="revisit-after" content="1 hour">

[christylh]

Ahh I see. I felt as much were true, I will just stick to the basics, the elements of good design and great titles.

Thank you everyone!

[houseofsecrets]

I have observed Yahoo! paying attention to meta keywords. Put your main keyphrase as the leftmost keyword. No one ever believes me when I tell them this. I think it's because I keep changing jobs and having to change my webmasterworld id.

[mdean]

Uh oh. We have a tag on our pages that says <META NAME="Robots" CONTENT="All">

Are we preventing spiders from indexing without even knowing it?