Bogus <META> tags?

[martyt]

I've been trying to figure out why my competition is ranking higher than me for some keywords, and I wonder if I've found a possible reason.

Checking the source for their site, I see every page has what appears to be a bogus <META> tag of the form:

<META Name="Keyword laden site description" Content="Same keyword laden site description">

Is this a clever trick I didn't know about, or is it a waste of my competition's time?

Surely the mere presence of keywords in a "worthless" META tag won't influence ranking -- will it?

[Brett_Tabke]

none at all.

[vincevincevince]

if you do a quoted search for the text in the tag - anything come up?

[Richie]

No. Afaik text inside tags and quotes is not recognised as being text on the page.