Someone said that meta tags are useless for ranking in Google/MSN, but they are compulsory for Yahoo. Is it true?

I know that different search engine look at meta tag in different way. Meta tags become less important than years ago since they are abused. But I am not sure that meta tags are definately useless in Google and MSN? :confused:

Thanks

Someone said that meta tags are useless for ranking in Google/MSN, but they are compulsory for Yahoo. Is it true?

I wish.

I know that different search engine look at meta tag in different way. Meta tags become less important than years ago since they are abused. But I am not sure that meta tags are definately useless in Google and MSN? :confused:

Thanks

Google will use a description meta tag in its search results listing if it cannot find anything else on a page that seems relevant to a query.

I'm not sure of what MSN is doing (if anything) with meta tags.

Yahoo, MSN and Teoma/Ask use keyword metatags as if they were untrusted content (my take on it). Google distrusts them so much that the description is used as a last resort and the keywords not at all.

They are not compulsory by any engine.

For the keywords metatag, the words are indexed, but not given high priority. They would help you in the case of a misspelling or otherwise very uncompetitive keyword, but that's pretty much it.

I use them for directories and link building purposes (letting linking partners know what words I'm focused on, what my preferred description for the page is, etc) and for planning and focus (reminding myself what keywords I'd like to focus on for the page) but that's pretty much it. Basically I assume that the search engines will ignore them and focus on their other benifits.

It's too bad they are not used by search engines, but I don't blame the engines for proceeding with extreme caution. Yet another case of a good idea ruined.

Ian

Someone said that meta tags are useless for ranking in Google Google will sometimes publish the meta-description in the SERPs, rather than on-page excerpts.

I'd say that presents an important consideration in SEO, not so much for ranking purposes, as much as making the most of your rank by trying to increase human click-throughs with very relevant meta-descriptions.

eg. SERPs results:

1.

Title: Keyword,Keyword,Keyword,Keyword,Keyword,Keyword,
Site: Keyword,Keyword,Keyword,Keyword,Keyword,Keyword,Ke yword,
Keyword,Keyword,Keyword,Keyword,

2.

Title: Keyword help at domain name
Site: Help for users with difficulty with Keyword issues, provided as part of a wider range of free online resources about Keyword this, Keyword that, and other Keyword topics.



Site 1 gets the rank - Site 2 gets the clickthroughs.

Therefore meta-description can be a very important consideration for SEO, as it can be ultimately concerned with converting human traffic, rather than simple ranking numbers.