Meta Tags

Meta Tag Question

[greash]

Hi, I have a three part question. Please share your thoughts.

1. How effective are meta tags, are they still an important ranking factor these days?

2. Will too many meta tags actually hurt your chances of being indexed and or hurt your rank?

3. Is it against adsense rules to have too many meta tag keywords as long as it pertains to the content of your site?

Thanks everyone! This is a great formum.

[asp4bunnies]

1. Not at all. They are possibly helpful for SERPS if you use the meta description tag. But they don't effect your ranking.
2. Yes. Keep it to 15-25 words. The rest is ignored and just adds to your bandwidth.
3. Adsense doesn't look at the metatag content, so it's not an issue.

[hunderdown]

I think your first 2 questions belong in the Google Search News forum.

Re your 3rd question, you should reread the terms and conditions for AdSense carefully. I don't remember anything specifically about meta tag keywords, but there are probably some general statements that would apply. I suspect that if you overdo your meta tags, that could be considered a violation of the terms.

Alternatively, set up a test page with your tons of meta tags and no AdSense ads on it, and email AdSense support to find out if they will OK the approach you are taking.

[lammert]

I am not sure if AdSense does nothing with meta tags. As an AdWords advertiser, I came across one publisher with a one-page-site only filled with AdSense and minimal content. The (very little) content on that site had nothing to do with the keywords for which I advertise, but the keywords in the meta tag were on-topic. All other AdSense ads were also about topics in the meta tag. This could indicate that AdSense uses the meta tags for targeting.

[mafew]

My site targets teenagers. I whipped 'fasion' into my meta keywords even though nothing on the site has anything to do with fasion, and fasion wasn't mentioned anywhere else on the site.

My site started showing ads for summer collections and corporate uniforms, etc.

It wasn't what I expected, the ads don't suit teenagers at all. But it shows that meta keywords can influence AdSense.

[mafew]

Also, I think meta descriptions are great.

I doubt they influence where you place in SERPS at all, but Google often uses your page's meta description as the description of the page when it shows search results.

So, I make sure I've got a very enticing meta description for every page!

[greash]

Great! Thanks for all the good feedback.

[treeline]

Meta tags often seem to help, especially for obscure phrases and common misspellings. There are a LOT of spelling-challenged surfers out there.