Title Tags, Meta Descriptions and Keywords
By Jill Whalen
Just when I finally stopped getting the dreaded "Do I need
commas or no commas in my Meta keyword tag" question, there's
been a new stream of Meta tag questions being asked at the forum
and in my email box. I'm not sure of the reason for the sudden
interest, but it's probably because people are starting to worry
about other engines besides Google now. I have written articles
about all of the tags, but it seems like a brief summary is
probably in order.
It's important to note that there's a big difference between
Title tags, Meta description tags and Meta keywords tags. First
of all, the Title tag is *not* a Meta tag. So if you see/hear me
say something about Meta tags, I'm by no means talking about the
Title tag.
Title tags are extremely important towards your goal of
achieving high search engine rankings. What you write in these
tags can indeed affect how your site ranks in all the major
engines (See the recently updated "All About Title Tags" here:
.) You should
always work your major phrases into the Title tags on your
pages, and make sure that each page of your site uses a unique
tag.
Meta description tags, on the other hand, don't actually appear
to affect your rankings in the search engines. Still, they are
very worthwhile to use because they allow you to control the
description of your listing in some engines for some search
queries. (See my past newsletter article, "Getting a Great Google
Description," at .)
The gist of that article is that your Meta description will show
in the search results only *if* it happens to use the exact
phrase that has been queried at the search engine. So use this
tag for marketing purposes, i.e., to entice people to click on
*your* link as opposed to the other 10 in the search results.
Meta keywords tags are a different animal altogether. Google,
for one, doesn't pay any attention to it. I've tested this
myself, and am 100% positive that Google doesn't index the words
placed in the Meta keywords tag. Yahoo (and all of its search
properties) plus Teoma/Ask Jeeves, do look at the Meta keywords
tag, and do index its contents. BUT, and this is a huge BUT,
that doesn't mean that filling this tag with the same keywords
you've optimized your page for will boost it in the rankings.
Let me say that again.
Just because Yahoo knows what words you've put in the Meta
keywords tag does not mean that the words you put in there will
give your page a boost.
To me it's common sense.
Let's say you've optimized a page for "black hat SEOs." So,
you've used that phrase in your Title tag, you've written your
content about black hat SEOs, and you've got some links pointing
to the page that use "black hat SEOs" in the clickable portion
of the link. Do you really think that also adding "black hat
SEOs" to your Meta keywords tag would be just the thing it needs
to get it found for that phrase in Yahoo? I don't. Maybe, just
maybe if 2 sites were identical except one had the phrase "black
hat SEOs" in the Meta keywords tag, that one would show first,
but 2 sites are never identical. (Plus the engines are always
trying to put a stop to duplicate content.)
Does this mean you shouldn't use the Meta keywords tag? No, not
at all. You certainly don't *have to* use it, as it shouldn't
affect your rankings for the keyword phrases that matter to you
most; however, you could still use it for phrases that are
somewhat obscure and just don't belong visibly on your page. I
talked about this a couple of years ago in this article: "No
Meta Keywords" .
I really think that misspellings and technical synonyms are the
best (and possibly only) use for this tag.
As to the age-old comma/no comma question (and I actually did
get this one asked today!), it makes no difference. Commas are
seemingly invisible to search engines, so it's pretty much the
same thing to them whether you use them or not!
I hope this helps clear up some of the confusion about Meta
tags, and to also clarify that when I say that Meta tags are
dead that I'm most definitely not talking about Title tags, as
they are not a Meta tag. And I'm not talking about the marketing
value of a Meta description tag. Certainly, if it makes you feel
good to use your Meta keywords tag and put your main keyword
phrases in there, then more power to you. It won't hurt anything,
and who knows...maybe that page that fits the "all else being
equal" scenario will show up one day and you'll have them beat
by a Meta keyword! ;-)
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Jill Whalen of High Rankings is an internationally recognized
search engine optimization (http://www.highrankings.com/)
consultant and host of the free weekly High Rankings Advisor
search engine marketing newsletter
(http://www.highrankings.com/advisor.htm).
She specializes in search engine optimization, SEO consultations
and seminars. Jill's handbook, "The Nitty-gritty of Writing for
the Search Engines" (http://www.highrankings.com/seo-writing.htm)
teaches business owners how and where to place relevant keyword
phrases on their Web sites so that they make sense to users and
gain high rankings in the major search engines.
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