Does Google Adsense Rely On Meta Tags?

Do good meta tags help the adsense bot in any way?

[Scurramunga]

Ok. I am sure that most of us know the claims about meta tags not being as useful as what they used to be, right? We'll at least that's my excuse for not keeping them ship shape at the moment. That, plus the fact that Google SERPS do not seem to rely on them, preferring the actual content instead.

Looking at some of my meta tags on some of my pages lately, it is obvious that since the content on my pages has developed over time, my tags havent been keeping up to reflect many of the changes. Thus they are not targeted as well as they could be.

So I was thinking that it is time for an update. My question being this: Has anyone found in their experience, that good meta tags (title description or keywords) help the Google Adsense bot in any way to deliver more targeted ads? Credit to the Media Parners bot, because my ads are fairly well targeted these days as it would seem (rubbish MFA's and spam advertisers aside...grrrrr) however maybe there is room for more improvement

[DamonHD]

Hi,

I'm pretty sure that the AS Mediabot can and *does* use the meta tags, because as soon as I removed an ambiguous word from the meta keywords on some pages a few unwanted ads targetted to that word stopped appearing...

Rgds

Damon

[Jordo needs a drink]

Definately uses the title. I was having trouble with targeting until I removed 3 words from the title.

[Ricky_G]

Yes! Meta tags do have impact over ads. I concluded it with an experiment I did way back. I hosted a BLANK PAGE somewhere - NO CONTENT Accept Meta Tags, and the Adsense blocks started to show ads according to Meta Tags. That means Metas certainly have impact over the ads.

Plus, the comments above prove that. Thanks for sharing

[Scurramunga]

Yes thank you all for sharing. What you all have observed certainly sounds fairly conclusive and is very good news because here is another (sometimes overlooked) tool at our disposal that can help us publishers :)

Since I have posted this I have have optimised a couple of tags on my pages.

[Jean]

Since I have posted this I have have optimised a couple of tags on my pages.

Let us know your findings on this

[Scurramunga]

Jean,
Work loads permitting, I intend to spend next week going through my site and optimisng all my tags. I will let you know what is going on with regards to any observations that I make or any noticable changes.

I don't know if this is a coincidence but it seems that the couple of tags that I have optimised are more on target all ready. Perhaps it is my imagination, as surely they haven't been spidered yet since the changes.

[joeking]

More work for me too methinks! Thanks everyone ;-)

[naplesdave]

Blogger.com templates have a tag called BlogMetaData. I don't see where it carries any descriptive words or keywords. So, I suppose we can add a Meta Tag to the template, no?

[celgins]

While the Google Media bot does focus mostly on page content, it does read title and meta tags and uses them.

I think "keyword stuffing" of the title and meta tags has always been a turn-off in Googles eyes, but well-structured tags do have relevance to searches and ads being displayed.

[JayC]

>> Yes! Meta tags do have impact over ads. I
>> concluded it with an experiment I did way
>> back. I hosted a BLANK PAGE somewhere - NO
>> CONTENT Accept Meta Tags, and the Adsense
>> blocks started to show ads according to Meta
>> Tags. That means Metas certainly have impact
>> over the ads.

Actually, it means that metas certainly have impact on the ads when there's no actual content on the page. That is, those findings aren't necessarily applicable to the typical page carrying AdSense ads, on which there is normally sufficient content to work with in targeting ads.

[annej]

Even if the effect is small this is very interesting. I'd always assumed the meta info was ignored.

[gordele]

deff meta tages and title affects the adsense bot.

in my case, I can say that its a big chuck of the targeting

[annej]

I'm giving it a try in one small section. Now to wait for the bot to come back by. Any idea how long that might take?

[Jordo needs a drink]

I have to revise my earlier post about adsense using the title.

When I did change the title, it did make an instant impact, but now the pages are pretty much back to normal (not so relevent ads).

I think the meta tags are used more initially for adsense to determine which ads to show, but once the bot comes around, the meta tags have less weight.

[alika]

Most of our pages do not have metatags, and targeting is almost always on-target. I would think metatags help, but Google does not solely rely on it. You can get good targeting even WITHOUT metatags.

[OptiRex]

Has anyone found in their experience, that good meta tags (title description or keywords) help the Google Adsense bot in any way to deliver more targeted ads?

Absolutely, definitely, positively...and I cannot understand why anyone would not include title bars and all meta tags correctly when constructing pages?

You are constructing pages for ALL search engines, not just Google's offerings.

[incrediBILL]

Actually, it means that metas certainly have impact on the ads when there's no actual content on the page

It impacts pages WITH content on the page too so using the same meta tag site wide can be both helpful or harmful depending on what you do with it.

You are constructing pages for ALL search engines, not just Google's offerings.

Google seems to still use them, they just don't give them as much weight.

Google will use meta descriptions instead of snippets so the best way to use that field is like a free Adwords field, Make it a call to action like "Best Widgets on the web! See our selection and you'll be impressed" so you can get more visitors to your site plus throw in a few more keywords.