How relevant and important are meta tags for better search engine ranking?
Which meta tags do you think are the most important?
Should one use DC Dublin Core META Tags or the traditional meta tags?
[FONT=Verdana]There was a very recent discussion on this subject: http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?892772-META-TAGS-for-SEO[/FONT]
Hi there what is DC Dubin Core META Tags. will you please define, i don’t know about it .
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You cn easily find the answer to that with a quick internet search. You could start with http://www.techrepublic.com/article/meta-tags-and-the-dublin-core/5177321 or see http://dublincore.org/ for full information.[/ot]
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Instead of posting links to posts meant to educate, I’ll just answer the question 
At this point, the most weight as far as META tags go, would be the TITLE tag. META Description is also important, albeit not as much. META Keywords has almost lost all of its value.
I would also look into structured data - since, increasingly that’s something that search engines look at.
palimadra has asked three specific questions regarding meta tags. Please answer one or all of those points. Replies with general statements about meta tags will be removed as fluff.
Unless you have your own code that makes use of keyword then delete that tag as it has been so misused that it is now completely ignored (unless you write your own code to use it in which case it, as with any other meta tags you create, will be important for your site only. Treat the keyword metatag the same way you treat the dogsrule and mooncheese meta tags - as a custom tag used only by your site that only needs to be there if you have your own code that uses it.
Even the description metatag counts below the actual page text as far as most search engines are concerned (except the one you wrote yourself).
That makes them just about the least most important meta tags for most sites - your statement was true ten years ago but is completely false now.
Meta Tags are considered as a white hat SEO. And Meta Tag increase your website popularity inside search engines, if you specified them properly in your on-page setting.
Really? Which tags do that?
<head>
<meta name=“description” content=“Free Web tutorials”>
<meta name=“keywords” content=“HTML,CSS,XML,JavaScript”>
<meta name=“author” content=“Ståle Refsnes”>
<meta charset=“UTF-8”>
</head>
So you’re suggesting the keyword, author and description tag boost your rank meaningfully?
Yes! if your keyword and description is attractive and according to niche as well as the keyword usage in your website content must be not more than 2%.
Google doesn’t even acknowledge the keyword tag… So while I’m not suggesting you would skip it I’d hardly call it an important factor… It’s a relic of the past when technology was more limited and sites more honest, or at least that was the hope.
You seem to be living back in the 20th Century as you are making statements that were true back then but have long since ceased to be even remotely relevant. At this point you’d almost certainly gain more from Google from the speed increase in your page loading times by deleting those tags than any benefit you’d have from including them.
Search engines now give a HIGH importance to load times so any meta tags that you don’t actually use within your own site (such as with your own internal site search script) are top candidates for deletion.
[FONT=Verdana]While the description meta tag may not help your SERPs, I would disagree with felgall about leaving it out. Google’s Webmaster Help states
Accurate meta descriptions can help improve your clickthrough;
which would seem to be a good enough reason to include it. Google go on to provide advice on creating good meta descriptions, which rather implies that they still consider them of some importance. :)[/FONT]
I didn’t actually say that you should leave it out. I said that it would be something you would consider when trying to make sure that your page loads fast enough. It would depend on how big your page is as to whether or not you would consider leaving it out. It would also depend on how well written the rest of your page is since if Google cn clearly isentify what the page is about and come up with a meaningful description to display without referencing the meta tag then the tag would be unnecessary.
That Google quote says ‘can improve’ not ‘will improve’ so in those instances where it doesn’t it would be a candidate for deletion.
Meta Tags aren’t considered at all by Google. They’re good only for other search engines like Bing or Yahoo. Meta description, though, is still important.
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Did you read this thread, and the links provided, before posting? Google does use some meta tags, including description.
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Sorry I meant meta keyword tags, these have no value at all. In fact most of the SEO plugins like SEO by Yoast even have the field turned off by default. They don’t affect the ranking of your website.
Meta keywords is not too important to Google, but it has some values, if not with Google then other search engines.
However, Meta Title and Meta Description these two are very important.
So you should use only those words which are related to your site to get maximum benefit from meta title and meta description.
Also think of length and stop words like top, best, the, and etc.