3 Reasons Why Meta Tags Are Still Important
By Stefan Hyross
When people first look into optimizing their website in order to gain better placement in the search engines one of the first things that comes to mind is the web site's meta tags. The meta tags contain information such as the keyword or keyword phrases that best describe the information or theme of a website as well as a short description about the site.
But of the years the importance of meta tags has been downplayed or ignored because of the lack weight given to them by search engines for rankings. But there are reasons why you will still want to pay attention to them.
Back in the early days of search engines meta tags were often the most important and sometimes the only tool you needed to ranking highly for keyword phrases. This made it very easy for sites to rank highly for terms that had nothing to do with the actual content of the site thus making the search engine results pages full of sites that were not relevant to the user.
In a effort to show more relevant search results search engines had to add additional factors and criteria into the way they ranked a website. Since then search engines have been paying much more attention to the content of a site as well as a number of other factors.
And even though these days some search engine such as Google pay little if any attention to meta tags in an effort to improve the quality of search results, there are still reasons why they should be an important part of search engine optimization.
1. Some Search Engines Still Give Weight To Meta Tags - Search Engines such as Yahoo and MSN still use meta tags as part of the determining factors for ranking a site. Although the amount of importance may be small, when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO) every little bit helps. Think of it as dotting your I's and crossing your T's.
2. It Can Help Increase Traffic To Your Site - Often search engines will use your title tags as the linked text for your site with either the whole or part of the description underneath it on the results page.
A well written title tag and description can entice someone to click on your link. How many times have you searched for something and clicked on a result based on the linked text of description.
3. Help Optimize Individual Pages - Each page of your website should have different keywords and descriptions that reflect the content on those pages. This can help when trying to optimize different sections of your site for different keyword phrases. Search engines may then display that exact page in the results directing visitor to that specific section rather than just the home page.
These techniques for using meta tags will not guarantee search engine placement but when combined with a complete search engine optimization campaign can help. And when it comes to optimizing your site for the search engines every little bit counts.
Stefan Hyross specializes in internet marketing services in Toronto to bring your site more traffic. For more information about meta tags use or our guaranteed service please feel free to visit our website.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Stefan_Hyross
Showing posts with label meta tag. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meta tag. Show all posts
Monday, March 16, 2009
The History of Meta Tags - Are They Still Necessary?
The History of Meta Tags - Are They Still Necessary?
By Dave Jackson
As early as 1996, a proposal was written to create a META tag to be used within the HTML of a page. Adding "metadata" tags to the HTML structure of the day for the purpose of better describing web pages. By then, hundreds of thousands of web pages had already been written, and the concern was that while pages could be indexed, there needed to be something that would allow to better automate their indexing.
That was known as the Proposal. Back in early 1999, papers were finally submitted to the World Wide Web Consortium - http://www.w3.org/ - a Resource Description Framework, but the tag had been in use for years.
Just as a library has a card index to catalog the millions of books, metadata was created to assist in creating the same thing for web pages. If you don't know what a Meta Tag looks like, try looking at the description at the W3 site. It is the purest form of information on HTML data.
For years webmasters were diligent including the necessary data into their pages. In fact, when you "View Source" on most web pages today you can see the meta data included within the HEAD tag.
If some of this is way over your head, hang in there; we're almost to the point.
Search engines have been around since 1993. The dream was to enable their "bots" to spider the web more effectively by indexing using something (metadata) within web pages. As early as 1994, search engine bots were already indexing entire pages. Because of the popularity of whole page indexing, sites such as "Webcrawler", later purchased by AOL, could only be used at night. During the day the number of searches simply crashed the servers.
Infoseek and AltaVista were the first to use the keywords meta tag in 1996. HotBot and Lycos soon followed. But what soon became apparent in 1997 was that some web site owners would insert misleading words about their pages, and some would use excessive repetition of words in hopes of tricking the search engines into thinking their pages were more relevant (read: Spamming).
Lycos stopped supporting the tag in 1998, and newer search engines such as Google and FAST never added support at all. When Infoseek ended in 2000, only AltaVista and Inktomi remained. AltaVista then joined the crowd and stopped supporting the keyword meta tag.
"In the past we have indexed the meta keywords tag but have found that the high incidence of keyword repetition and spam made it an unreliable indication of site content and quality. We do continue to look at this issue, and may re-include them if the perceived quality improves over time," said Jon Glick, AltaVista's director of internet search.
Not sure why Inktomi hangs in there. Their explanation is:
"The meta keywords value is just one of many factors in our ranking equation, and we've never given too much weight to it. That said, we will continue to use it as long as our relevance modeling shows that it adds value," Ken Norton, director of product marketing for Inktomi's web search division.
So if by 1994 we already had contextual based search engines, why in 1999 did we need metadata?
Well, that's just the point. We didn't really need them for search engine inclusion. As a matter of fact, the W3 explains the main reason would be to notify search engines that your site contains pages in another language, and where those pages are located. But as far as using metadata to get included in search engines, W3 simply touches on the Keyword and Description meta tags. Their focus is on better structure of the web page, content, and improved use of the robots.txt file.
Okay, so we learned that we don't need Meta Tags for the search engines to find us. And that since the early '90's the "bots" have been spidering the web, including pages into various collections. But we do know that a higher ranking in the search engines will improve our AdSense performance. In other words, more people visiting your site, the greater the probability they will click your AdSense ads and make you some money.
The fallacy is that souping your pages up with (stuffing) keywords will increase your search engine rank. Guess what? Nobody uses Inktomi.
Founder of one of the first web hosting companies on the Internet, World Wide Mart, Dave Jackson has been teaching others how to monetize their web sites for over ten years. Currently he teaches others to create a solid residual income by creating quality web sites of great benefit to visitors and monetizing them using contextual ads. His blog is Making Money with Contextual Ads.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dave_Jackson
By Dave Jackson
As early as 1996, a proposal was written to create a META tag to be used within the HTML of a page. Adding "metadata" tags to the HTML structure of the day for the purpose of better describing web pages. By then, hundreds of thousands of web pages had already been written, and the concern was that while pages could be indexed, there needed to be something that would allow to better automate their indexing.
That was known as the Proposal. Back in early 1999, papers were finally submitted to the World Wide Web Consortium - http://www.w3.org/ - a Resource Description Framework, but the tag had been in use for years.
Just as a library has a card index to catalog the millions of books, metadata was created to assist in creating the same thing for web pages. If you don't know what a Meta Tag looks like, try looking at the description at the W3 site. It is the purest form of information on HTML data.
For years webmasters were diligent including the necessary data into their pages. In fact, when you "View Source" on most web pages today you can see the meta data included within the HEAD tag.
If some of this is way over your head, hang in there; we're almost to the point.
Search engines have been around since 1993. The dream was to enable their "bots" to spider the web more effectively by indexing using something (metadata) within web pages. As early as 1994, search engine bots were already indexing entire pages. Because of the popularity of whole page indexing, sites such as "Webcrawler", later purchased by AOL, could only be used at night. During the day the number of searches simply crashed the servers.
Infoseek and AltaVista were the first to use the keywords meta tag in 1996. HotBot and Lycos soon followed. But what soon became apparent in 1997 was that some web site owners would insert misleading words about their pages, and some would use excessive repetition of words in hopes of tricking the search engines into thinking their pages were more relevant (read: Spamming).
Lycos stopped supporting the tag in 1998, and newer search engines such as Google and FAST never added support at all. When Infoseek ended in 2000, only AltaVista and Inktomi remained. AltaVista then joined the crowd and stopped supporting the keyword meta tag.
"In the past we have indexed the meta keywords tag but have found that the high incidence of keyword repetition and spam made it an unreliable indication of site content and quality. We do continue to look at this issue, and may re-include them if the perceived quality improves over time," said Jon Glick, AltaVista's director of internet search.
Not sure why Inktomi hangs in there. Their explanation is:
"The meta keywords value is just one of many factors in our ranking equation, and we've never given too much weight to it. That said, we will continue to use it as long as our relevance modeling shows that it adds value," Ken Norton, director of product marketing for Inktomi's web search division.
So if by 1994 we already had contextual based search engines, why in 1999 did we need metadata?
Well, that's just the point. We didn't really need them for search engine inclusion. As a matter of fact, the W3 explains the main reason would be to notify search engines that your site contains pages in another language, and where those pages are located. But as far as using metadata to get included in search engines, W3 simply touches on the Keyword and Description meta tags. Their focus is on better structure of the web page, content, and improved use of the robots.txt file.
Okay, so we learned that we don't need Meta Tags for the search engines to find us. And that since the early '90's the "bots" have been spidering the web, including pages into various collections. But we do know that a higher ranking in the search engines will improve our AdSense performance. In other words, more people visiting your site, the greater the probability they will click your AdSense ads and make you some money.
The fallacy is that souping your pages up with (stuffing) keywords will increase your search engine rank. Guess what? Nobody uses Inktomi.
Founder of one of the first web hosting companies on the Internet, World Wide Mart, Dave Jackson has been teaching others how to monetize their web sites for over ten years. Currently he teaches others to create a solid residual income by creating quality web sites of great benefit to visitors and monetizing them using contextual ads. His blog is Making Money with Contextual Ads.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dave_Jackson
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.
Make A Website in minutes with HighPowerSites or Build A Website with BuildAGreatSite.
Start your own ebook business and Resell Ebooks with BooksWealth.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Scott_Lindsay
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.
Make A Website in minutes with HighPowerSites or Build A Website with BuildAGreatSite.
Start your own ebook business and Resell Ebooks with BooksWealth.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Scott_Lindsay
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