Basic keyword question?

[nfinland]

Hi,

A basic keyword question I didn´t find any answers to when browsing the discussion:

What is the best way to use keywords, A or B? What I´m trying to learn is how the SEs read the meta tag. Do they combine the keywords (if so would not the examples below be the same?). Or do they read the exact word or combination and not mix them together with the other keywords?

A)

<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="cars,sport,old,new">

B)

<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="sport cars,old cars,new cars">

[Macguru]

I would take "B".

Try not to repeat "cars" more than 3 times, and avoid using a word that does not appear on page.

<sidenote> The keyword meta tag is almost completely deprecated. Search engines use so little of it, it's not worth spending so much time learning about. It is passé.

My best advice would be to craft at least one page focusing on each and every keyphrase you are targeting. </sidenote>

[HitProf]

I agree with Macguru: B is better and the keyword metatag is almost obsolete. However, some of the smaller engines and directories still use it, so if you target specific countries it can still be useful.

Although there is little evidence, I think Google still uses the keywords metatag to boost words but only if they also appear in the visible text.

Don't repeat keywords directly, use "widget, blue widget, green widget" instead of "blue widget, green widget, widget".

[spiky]

nfinland. I agree with the advice above, but it is also important to look beyond pure placement, particularly if your site is commercial.

The placement of your site on "sport car" will be far more competative than on "buy morgan sport cars"

I think its time the "keyword" tag was renamed to "keyphrase"

Hit a winning key phrase of 3 or more words in you keyword metatag list, and your site will be returned with high placement when this exact phrase is searched for.

We have several pages that do good business in this way.

The key is to think how people use the internet to search for product and services they intend to purchase, versus searches for general information.

[nfinland]

Thanks for the advice!

My current problem or maybe not a problem, but anyway - I rank good on some very competed keywords in my "theme" area and would like to reach more searches by adding some plural forms and maybe some new keywords also.

The problem is that they all relate to the keyword "car" and that particular keyword gets too much attention in my meta, text etc.(density too high).

One solution I´m thinking of is to build a new domain and concentrate the plural and new keywords to that site. Wouldn´t like to begin from the scratch though as this is a part time job/hobby for me...

P.S.

Are <meta name="rating" content="General"> and <classification>, <topic> etc. out?

[Macguru]

>>Are <meta name="rating" content="General"> and <classification>, <topic> etc. out?

I believe so. Snip them all away. You will save time worrying about them, and make smaller pages. Search engines tend to like smaller pages.