how to hide metatags from others?

metatag, others, hide

[the_rookie]

My site just soared in the google ranking to 1 :) thanks to you guys!

now I need to know how I can hide my meta keywords from other users so that they can't copy them. how is it done?

[topr8]

well, i don't think google considers the meta keywords in its algo...

so your good ranking is determined by other factors.

[edit_g]

Don't worry about the Meta tags- they don't really count in Google. I've left one page without Meta tags about two months ago as an experiment and it is the top ranking page for the phrase I optimized for- so I don't really think meta tags are worth the bother...

[Sinner_G]

Not sure if that would work, just an idea I got while reading your question: it might be possible to hide the metatags if you included them in an external javascript file.

In that file you would something like:

function meta (){
document.writeln(<meta name='keywords' content='keyword1, keyword2'>);
}

[edited by: tedster at 5:27 pm (utc) on Nov. 25, 2002]
[edit reason] hide the smilie graphic [/edit]

[bateman_ap]

I would have thought that it is impossible as the search engines would have to read the meta tags therefore without cloaking everyone would be able to read em.

[korkus2000]

SE spiders don't see JavaScript Sinner_G.

[gsx]

There isn't a search engine spider that parses JavaScript. Hiding it JavaScript would therefore be identical to deleteing it.

[ikbenhet1]

if you hide the metatags, Google won't find them either.

Google does not execute your javascript, it just indexes it and this way google will index.

<script>document.write('<meta name="something" content="something">')</script>

in stead of

<meta name="something" content="something">

and your description would be gone.

[Sinner_G]

I thought Googlebot doesn't read the metas anyways? So my 'solution' was just for making the tags invisible to humans reading the source code.

[korkus2000]

That is true, but why not just delete them then? Some engines do use meta tags, and I think that is what it is geared towards. Those engines cannot read JS.

[diddlydazz]

<<-- but why not just delete them then?

Because Google is not the *only* SE around, getting rid of meta tags altogether would be a bit over the top, think about the other engines, this time next year Google may not be what it is now, no-one knows for sure.

My advice: Leave the meta tags where they are.

<<-- I thought Googlebot doesn't read the metas anyways?

Yes googlebot does read meta tags, whether they hold much weight is another issue but googlebot *does* read them.

Dazz

[Sinner_G]

Does ANY search engine read javascript? What about site internal search engines?