focus on some seo questions

the current standards

[specter]

Hi there,

I'm coming back to SEO after a while.I need to know the current situation about main seo issues and something about blog promotion.
So, I pose some short questions:

1- does "canonical fix" represent still an issue?

ask that since I started a brand new site and searching for differents urls (www,non-www) Google returns to me the same results.

2- does Google consider in some way keyword and/or description tags?

again, I ask that since it seeems to me to find in serps pages indexed on tag basis...maybe I'm wrong...

3- Did inbound links become less relevant for page ranking?

4- did serps refresh become more frequent?

5- does, in a general way google consider off-page factors more relevant than on-page factors?

about blogs:

1- does google index even older posts if relevant for the search?

2- does google consider as fresh content new posts with older date?

3- does google consider more relevant frequently updated blogs?

Please, feel free to reply in the way you prefer; answer the question you prefer, even shortly; I only need to get an overview about current SEO trend.

thanks everyone in advance for participation

sincerely

[coopster]

I'll take the first one ...

1- does "canonical fix" represent still an issue?

Determine which you are going to market and use that in your DNS. Permanently redirect the other. A recent reference:
Search Engines Agree on "Canonical tag" [webmasterworld.com]

[specter]

Interesting...

so I could fix that simply by adding that tag...
...and for a blog...where should I put it?
In the header script, I suppose...

[coopster]

so I could fix that simply by adding that tag...

For some search engines, yes. However, I tend to agree with the opinions in that thread that the tag is a more of a quick fix, or a temporary adjustment while you address the real issue. Adjust your DNS and permanent redirection are more appropriate IMHO.

[specter]

ok, so, again .htaccess...

and the first is gone.

let's talk about tags: are they considered or not?

[coopster]

The Google News Forum here has a FAQ [webmasterworld.com] that has some relative discussion. And remember, Google isn't the only search engine.

[mattur]

There was a recent thread discussing meta keywords and meta description [webmasterworld.com] which may be of interest.

[specter]

Very interesting the faq section.
As regard to the meta tags, it seems that situation remained the same than ever: tags are (probably) considered only by Yahoo/altavista...but I don't consider them as valid search engine and I don't think that they could bring relevant traffic to my site...
do you have different experience about?