SEO and Meta Tags: No more Foolin

SEO and Meta Tags: No more Foolin'
By Scott Lindsay

When an online marketer is designing and setting up web pages they may use a Meta information to allow search engines to gain an understanding of what their website or web page is designed to do for visitors.

Once upon a time in the land of Cyber it was believed that a Meta Tag could be the silver bullet that allowed you to gain high rankings in search engines. The fairy tale has gone away, but the Meta Tag Fable remains.

What is a Meta Tag?

A Meta Tag is invisible to your visitors, but along with other Meta information may be useful to search engines to derive a brief description of your website. This information is what you will find if you do a search of your own website through a popular search engine. The Meta tag is added through the use of html language.

In a time not so far removed a Meta Tag was often loaded with keywords or phrases associated with your website.

These jam-packed Meta Tags would allow for a meteoric rise in the search engines, however the mechanism for ranking search engines began to alter when search engines discovered that the Meta Tag didn’t provide the most pristine picture of the sites they were ranking.

The companies operating search engines saw that the Meta Tag was being abused so they began to develop sophisticated new ways to rank websites that did not rely on Meta Tags.

It is possible that you could find marketing data that indicates an approach that includes keyword stuffing on Meta Tags, please understand this is either based on outdated information or the person writing the article hasn’t really researched their subject very well.

The last search engine to use Meta Tags was Alta Vista and they ceased using this ranking method in 2002.

Search engines do use Meta Title information, but do not use Meta Tags for search engine rankings. Goggle has never used Meta Tags.

Meta information can still be useful for your website, but using Meta Tags is now something that is ignored and vilified in less than polite company.

The growth of Search Engine Optimized (SEO) articles is a healthy direction because is helps provide legitimacy to your website and it also provides a positive reputation online. This reputation is now a part of many search engine rankings.

A reputable online marketing consultant can provide content rich ideas that will enhance the long-term performance of your website.

Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects.

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