«

Do you still need to use meta tags if you want search engines to find your
site??

What's the advantage in using them??



Daniel

"asdf" <> wrote in message
news:rVFub.2829$...
> Do you still need to use meta tags if you want search engines to find your
> site??
>
> What's the advantage in using them??
>
>
>
> Daniel
>
>
Hi Daniel
my understanding is that very few, if any, search engines use them anymore
due to over zealous SEO techniques.
I think some will use them to display a description of your site but not to
rank it.
Some meta tags can be used to prevent your page/s being indexed.

also they don't actually help search engines find your site, you should
register with a couple of the major ones like Google and DMOZ and let them
do their thing.

rgds
rob

Cool, yea, find is the wrong word there, i real meen rank / deside on what
words to show it.


"rob" <> wrote in message
news:bpfao4$go2$...
>
> "asdf" <> wrote in message
> news:rVFub.2829$...
> > Do you still need to use meta tags if you want search engines to find
your
> > site??
> >
> > What's the advantage in using them??
> >
> >
> >
> > Daniel
> >
> >
> Hi Daniel
> my understanding is that very few, if any, search engines use them anymore
> due to over zealous SEO techniques.
> I think some will use them to display a description of your site but not
to
> rank it.
> Some meta tags can be used to prevent your page/s being indexed.
>
> also they don't actually help search engines find your site, you should
> register with a couple of the major ones like Google and DMOZ and let them
> do their thing.
>
> rgds
> rob
>
>

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 07:59:41 +1300, asdf wrote:

> Cool, yea, find is the wrong word there, i real meen rank / deside on what
> words to show it.

Although putting half a dozen or so relevant keywords in meta tags
probably wouldn't hurt, I find the best thing these days is to just use
proper HTML coding techniques.

Markup your HTML 'semantically' - ie use tags for their meaning rather
than their presentation (use CSS for that). That way the search engine
can make judgements about the importance of each bit of content. Make
sure your HTML validates, and use a proper hierarchy of heading tags. Make
sure the headings are descriptive of the topic(s). Put in a proper title,
and make use of eg <em> tags for emphasis (you could always present them
the same as the body text with stylesheets if desired) etc.

A lot of the accessibility guidelines also help out search engines. The
problems are the same - trying to make sense of a pages content without
'seeing' it. Minimise the use of tables for layout - they just confuse the
interpretation of the content.

And for Google, try to get lots of external links to your site (especially
from popular sites).

I would avoid trying to use ranking 'tricks' - the latest trick will end
up being penalised by search engines and you will find yourself worse off.
Just code the HTML properly.

Cheers
Anton