Google USES Meta Tags!

meta tags

[fello]

I just checked the description of my site, and Google pulled my entire Meta Tag > Description beneath my URL.

Anyone else has this?

[Marcia]

Yes, it was noticed a few months ago, but it isn't seen too often. WebGuerrilla first noticed it:

[webmasterworld.com...]

And then here a few days ago:

[webmasterworld.com...]

WebGuerrilla:

It seems to show up more often between the 15th and the 25th of the month. (pre-update) It also tends to be quite random.

You saw just the meta description with no sign of meta keywords tag, right?

[przero2]

Also seen some ALT tags displayed in the snippets?

[Marcia]

>some ALT tags displayed in the snippets?

Not often, but one that's loaded with graphics interspersed with text now has the keyword phrase from the alt and then some text following. It goes, "keyword keyword WOW! Only $8.99!" LOL.. it's sitting there in top spot and the poor woman is up 'til 4 AM nights packing orders to ship. Whatta bot! :)

[Hagstrom]

Google will display the META tag description if your search words only appear in the anchor text of outgoing links.

[ciml]

Yep, Google seems to have no problem matching alt text, or including it in snippets.

[2_much]

I have quite a few sites where google relies on the meta & alt tags.

I've been optimizing for a lot of small keyword combinations lately and Google is loving it. We don't get much traffic from these but it adds up and it's targetted.

Each page on my sites has a primary keyword. In the meta and alt tags we include all the possible variations: widgets online, widgetsonline, widgets on line, widgetson line, wiget online, wiget on line, wigetonline, widget online.com, widgetonline.com

Because widgetsonline is so small and there aren't many pages in the database with widgetsonline, google uses the meta tags. Also, these pages are being picked up and displayed in the SERP's midupdate, which I've never seen before, but I guess is the "everflux" phenomena.

[TomWaits]

When the searched words are already in our ALT image text, that text almost always shows up in the Google SERPS.