Lead Gen, Associate, and SEO Guru Adam Torkildson

Search engines and people (indirectly) use meta tags.

Are meta tags critical? Every search engines emphasizes meta tags differently. Google doesn’t let the public know how it uses meta tags. I have noticed that a lot of websites show up on the first page of Google for specific subjects and yet they don’t have any keyword or description tags. So don’t let anybody fool you by exaggerating how important they are for Search Engine Optimization. Search engines index algorithms vary greatly — some assign a lot of importance to meta tags, so it is a good idea to use them.

Meta tags are lines of codes that are built into Internet pages. These code lines can’t be seen on the web browser (but look at what is said about the description tag, below), however, the search engine uses them to group your web pages accurately. They can have either descriptions, titles, or keywords. You don’t have to use descriptions and keywords, however your website will appear strange if you don’t use a “title” tag, because people will have “Untitled web page” in their browsers.

In the past, people would insert useless or repetitive information in their meta tags, trying to receive more traffic. So to stop people from cheating, not a lot of weight is assigned to a meta tag’s keywords these days; however, they are still checked for relevance. You will not be ranked well at all if you stuff them with keywords that do not pertain to your page.

The “head” section of a web page is where meta tags are found. Some people suggest using only lowercase letters in your tags, and avoid repeating terms within the keyword tag.

Mostly, the real meta tag contents are not visible, but the “description” meta tag’s information will be shown on nearly all of the search engine results as well as the title page when the results are revealed. Avoid repetition of keywords in the description tag, and keep the description text relevant.

Although it is possible to build a website without including meta tags, most have a title meta tag, keywords meta tag, and description meta tag.

The title tag, as you would assume, contains the website title. The title need not be the same as the headline a visitor to the site actually sees. For example, the headline at the top of a website might read, “The College Information Page” while the title in the meta tag might say “Online Colleges, Online Degrees, and College Admission”. In fact, there is a very good reason why a website owner would want a different title in the meta tag than on the website itself.

The reason is that the function of the website headline is to describe the content of the page for visitors who are already looking at it. The title tag’s function, is to help determine the way in which search engines categorize, index, and rank the site. Although a surprising number of website owners choose a title for use in their meta tag without much thought or research, they do so to their detriment.

If you doubt it, do a simple experiment. Pick a search term, any search term, and see which websites come up in the top 10 in Google or Yahoo. Then view their title meta tags. Almost without exception, you’ll find the search term.

Google, Yahoo, and MSN seem to ignore the keyword meta tag, perhaps because of the way it has been misused in the past. However, webmasters should not ignore the keyword tag because many of the smaller search engines and numerous directories factor it into their indexing and/or ranking algorithms.

The description meta tag does not factor into search engine rankings. But, some search engines and directories use the copy in the tag to describe the site to potential visitors. As a result, the difference between gaining and losing a visitor may be what your description tag says about your site.

Unfortunately, for many website owners, meta tags are an afterthought. And even many of the so-called search engine optimization gurus don’t seem to understand their value. I hope that now you do.