META Tags, Do Search Engines Care?

That is the big question, with other forms of SEO optimisation available now, do search engines even look at these as the stories go that search engines like Google no longer look at these due to abuse of the system, etc.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

I wouldn't be surprised if google didn't, but I would still add one just in case because this is not proven. Google has been very tough lately, so if this is true I really am not suprised.

 

Well the big rumour is that all search engines look at and care about now is if the page has a <title> tag and it reads the url e.g. http://admin-talk.com/threads/meta-tags-do-search-engines-care.1862/#post-16235 and maybe a description and that's it

 

I guess they have their reasons, I think it actually is better so that it can be fair for everyone instead of people doing blackhat seo tricks, and getting up there.

 

yea I agree as it's easy to stuff tonnes and tonnes of keywords in, but not so easy to constantly change the pages URL, title or description, etc.

 

Yea I know, its pretty sad when I see competitor sites doing it. (other Admin Forums) and then they get a higher ranking while I am doing everything the legit way.

 

yea, well I guess their sites are the rubbish ones with no proper content at all as true sites are better

 

Haha very true.

 

I believe that there are a few search engines that still follow meta tags. I think I heard that the Bing bot still takes into consideration of meta tags but I have not gained much confirmation from this, but it was from a reliable source. I have also heard of the rumor about google bot not taking into account meta tags and I believe it could be plausible.

I, myself still use meta tags, they are easy to set up and only takes a moment and could in fact help your forum grow and could be the difference between first place and second place on search engines.

 

Well put. I still use them as well because it isn't 100% confirmed that google avoids them as they have never said or made an announcement about it. And yea it can make a difference.

 

A word of advice from a man who knows what he's doing:

 

Meta description works the best, but the meta keyword is played out. I've been doing SEO since 2004, and the search engines still read the description area, along with the page title. Page title + description = win.

 

Yes of course, Pages titles are very important.

 

Even if Google doesn't look at the meta keywords there is no saying that other search engines don't use it. It's not only just about Google and Bing, there are millions of other search engines out there and some of them might even become big and still use the meta keywords in their searches. If you've done the best SEO that you can, then adding meta information won't harm you and still covers all your bases; just in case.

 

Good point Panik, yea its not just about Google SEO which most people worry about.. they should worry about others as well, and there are thousands. But I dont blame them as Google is number 1.

 

Yes they're still important. Google isn't the "only" search engine the world, and I'm sure a few out there still use them in some way, shape, or form.

 

Yea of course it isn't its just the biggest thats why everyone only cares about Google Optimization and not other Search Engines.

 

You should always have a meta description, but the meta keywords code is useless, and nobody follows it nomore.

 

Yea, a meta description is important, just the meta keywords are not.