http www https meta tag keywords dead.

[Brett_Tabke]

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to lay to rest several old friends. Although in their day, they could generate thousands of referrals for their friends, they just can't get up and go any longer. Without further ado, we hear by officially proclaim the meta tag keywords "http, www, https" to be among the deceased.

Yes, they were born in the early days of 1997 when meta tag keywords first appeared on the scene. Simply placing one of those puppies in your meta tags could bring in more hits than you could imagine. Sites like Infoseek, Excite and Lycos were the main culprits at sending referrals. A simple design flaw in their 3 search algos was the cause. I happen to know the man responsible for discovering you three little guys, and would like to thank you old friends for around 1.3 million referrals in 1997 alone - including an awesome 450,000 from infoseek in six months (damn I miss Infoseek!).

Yes you could get hits in 97 from anyone who happened to be searching for for their domain name. Something as simple as searching for "http://www.bob.com" could make a page with "http" in the meta tag show up. Throw in a good www & .com in the tag and you had your self top rankings under thousands of keywords. I wish I would have kept screen shots.

Rest in peace guys.

[rcjordan]

Well, I'm not SEO-talented enough to have known that they were hauling in the traffic, so I won't miss them.

[engine]

Oh dear, oh dear.
Brett, if this is the case, I expect my rankings to drop.
If oldtimer is reading this, perhaps she will remember the e-mail we discussed on the subject. Looks like we'll have to re-think.

[Brett_Tabke]

I don't think there is a decrease in rankings for having them in tags - I'm in trouble with a huge number of pages if there is...