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DON'T ever include a keyword or key phrase in your meta
tags that is not present on that page.
On our site many of our keywords are not present on
the home page, but do appear elsewhere on the site. In
which case should Brett's advise read "not present
on that site", rather that "not present on that page"
Not that it matters much, you can rid your site of meta tags entirely and your rankings won't suffer.
So are you saying that there is a chance that my page will be penalised in SERP because I have keywords in the meta keywords section that do not appear on the page or anywhere else on the public ally accessible site?
Yikes!
Well i'm not changing anything just to keep Google happy. Anybody searching for those keywords would be more than happy to find my site.
Search engine's don't work for us poor ASP's :(
"meta tags" still play a vital role in the Inktomi algo.
Shak
No, I'm not saying that. There is a big difference between no benefit and a penalty.
Some engines will use your description meta. However, I haven't seen any proof offered up by anyone that meta tags will influence your position in any way on any engine.
As for Inktomi, my rankings didn't change when meta tags were removed or added. The easiest way I have found to influence Ink is to repeat the keywords in the title and header. I add keyword and description metas out of habit only and for the odd engine that will use the description tag.
I think I got worried because of the original "DON'T" being all in CAPS!
Just to explain - I offer an ASP that is a solution to "Problem X". However, the problem is commonly referred to as "Problem Y" and also "Problem Z", so I have all three versions in my keywords section, whereas my site only talks about "Problem X".
If you want to be found in searches for "problem y" and "problem z", then you should mention them on your page. If you only discuss "problem x", then that's all your site is about.
Facing a similar situation in the past, I've used phrasing such as, "Problem X, sometimes referred to as 'Problem Y' or 'Problem Z', can be easily solved by the correct application of ..."
The meta keywords won't help on any major search engine except for Inktomi, where it does have some influence.
Find a way to work "problem y" and "problem z" into your page content - you'll be glad you did.
Jim
I will look at trying to work all versions of the problem name into what little text my home page does have.
I had done so to some extent initially, but with there being so little text in the first place I was worried about being done for "keyword stuffing"...
As i've said elsewhere however, search engine traffic is not something that I can rely on at all (and therefore don't worry about), since there are many hundreds of consultancy and research web sites about "problem x/y/z" that are so stuffed full of white papers and what not that I don't stand a chance anyway!
Sorry for straying off-topic, but one option I have been considering is offering free web hosting for problem x/y/z consultants (for whom there would be no conflict of interest with my online service) in return for permanent advertising on their pages.
Cheers
"meta tags" still play a vital role in the Inktomi algo.
I wouldn't characterize Ink's use of metas as "vital," as Inktomi implies that metas are pretty much a concession to webmasters who use graphics extensively.
According to Ink [inktomi.com]: This line is not as important as is commonly believed... as a rule of thumb, if you're putting things in the Keywords line that aren't in the rest of the page, you're probably putting too much in."
And a little further down:
People usually believe their site is unindexable because the home page is entirely a Flash animation or graphic. This is not a problem per se. Make the home page as indexable as possible by including correct Title, Description and Keywords meta-tags, and graphical "alt" tags.
And my personal favorite:
If one is heavily oriented toward Flash, Javascript or style sheets, make sure there are provisions so the site can be used and navigated with those features turned off. Because search engines operate on text, anything you do to accomodate the vision-impaired or wireless browsers helps you with search engines.
How important are the meta keyword/description tags? In the feed programs, presumably they have an impact since its part of the feed. In pages included the regular or PFI way, well the engines usually say there is no advantage given to pages included either way, they are treated the same regardless of inclusion method.
If metas don't count in the XML feeds, then we're just wasting our time creating them, if we're not wasting our time, then they do count in 4 engines to some degree.
Skibum - Can you explain what you mean by "content" section?
