And now it's Official. Makes you wonder what your SEO "Specialists" have been doing in re: to Meta Tags that many have been paying for this service for all these years.
Aniq Rahman
· 2 months ago
There are other search engines that probably give some credence to meta tags though.
Google can say what it wants to, but that won't take away from the fact that I'm still the #1 SEO Expert in Michigan http://bit.ly/MFkeA
craigsanatomy
· 2 months ago
Jacob - I'm surprised that Google didn't mention you in their article? I would have thought it would have at least mentioned the #1 SEO Expert in Michigan?!?! How can they make such a huge announcement without at least giving us a clue as to how you helped bring about this change?
Jacob Brown Designs
· 2 months ago
LOL...this is no change. Google claims to change it's algorithms, but I don't believe it. I haven't changed my website in months yet I continue to stay on top of the competition.
Name
· 2 months ago
With a Google Pagerank of 2, you really have to be the best!
Jeremy Young
· 2 months ago
lol
Steve Bellante
· 2 months ago
I always enjoy reading about the ongoing development by Google to improve their search algorithms to more accurately reflect data. Nice post!
Skip Howard
· 2 months ago
While this info has been around for a long time to web developers, the keywords/descriptions are still important to Bing - I would still take the 15 minutes and write in some keywords into every page.
slamb0513
· 2 months ago
You can't disregard the meta keyword tag completely, especially if your job is to optimize your site for a global presence. For instance, popular Chinese search engine Baidu still uses the meta keywords in their ranking algorithm.
Chris Shipton
· 2 months ago
Meta tags are still useful, but if its the sole basis of your SEO something is very wrong...
http://f1marketsolutions.com
· 2 months ago
OMG, does this (finally) mean that the SEO boys/girls will have to go out and...get...a...job? Yikes!
Jeremy
· 2 months ago
I feel like the guy who has to constantly send his family links to Snopes.
This is NEWS??? I don't know ANYONE who has used meta keywords for the last five years !
Don Ambridge
· 2 months ago
Er... just because the mighty Google disregards them doesn't mean keywords are "history". There are many uses for the tag outside of SEO. Lots of web applications use them for context, tagging, semantics, etc. At the end of the day, really, Google traffic is largely *shite" traffic. Quick hits, no engagement. That's fine for initial numbers, but hardly a reason to toss a key aspect of HTML validity to the dustbin of dead standards.
Media Designer
· 2 months ago
Google also cannot be gamed by paying top dollar for CPC keywords. If someone told you that for a fee you can get to be #1 on Google, don't ever talk to them again! Next they'll be trying to sell you London Bridge. Google states clearly that CPC is not the only way to get high rankings. Google is going more and more organic. Yup, sad but true - content is king, which is better for all. Except the idiot that told me to pay for rankings!
@steveplunkett
· 2 months ago
While Google may not use the Meta Keywords Tag for ranking in Google Search Results, the meta keywords tag can be used to rank for terms in Google.. if you don't understand than you haven't been following the 100+ tests we have done on @steveplunkett...
brettburky
· 2 months ago
I knew it, I knew it. I guess I should stop keyword stuffing my meta tags. JK.
I seem to only use the meta description as a sort of adwords ad. With a call to action and phone number or something of the like. This has been known for a while, you just never heard it straight from the source till now.
Ediciuz Virtuoso
· 2 months ago
I kinda figured as much, with the proper algorithm the SE can figure out what your keywords should be. Plus the majority of sites I look at (both huge and small) have no metatags. The only reason a big company wouldn't include metatags for SEO is if they insignificant to SEO placement.
Jeremy Roberts
· 2 months ago
good to know... I was about to spend a few nights updating meta tags on our ecommerce site...
@JoeHobot
· 2 months ago
He is a dumbSEOass , keywords are not for freaking google "ranking" , I experiment this on so many blogs/sites. The thing is that it puts your blog/site in the right category. If you write about fashion you can't put keywords like google, social networking, spam :)
Keywords are most likely used for adsense, adwords purposes from my own experience if blog/site had no keywords it took 20 minutes to update the adwords.
With keywords took 1 second.
Paola Wolowitz
· 2 months ago
Finally! This was known for while after mysteriously dropping "keyword" optimized sites across about 7 months ago.
URL and domains are more important than ever. Not to mention content =) Hoorrraay!!
Thank you Matt, I hope your cat is doing well.
Σχολή Χορού
· 2 months ago
The Google stuff got pretty strict lately, I broke my ban record yesterday, getting ban in 3 hours after making my site live and got it indexed :( 20 fresh euros in vain ...
complexity0
· 2 months ago
Descriptions I'm going to let you finish but keywords had one of the best SEO of all time.
Randy
· 2 months ago
Does this include the "meta description?"
Sendn
· 2 months ago
Good, meta tags aren't needed anymore. Content and links matter more.
Pete Prodoehl
· 2 months ago
Crap! I actually put the entire contents of all my pages into the meta tags, hoping that would help things...
I can't believe I paid $50,000 for advice like that... I'll be firing my SEO guy now. :(
Gary Taylor
· 2 months ago
As long as big sites like Amazon.com and Ebay.com continue to use them, they still get my vote. And of course Google still uses them on their Analytics site.
All together now!...You can't get better than a nice bit of Meta! La La La La Laaa!
jubo
· 2 months ago
MMMMMMmmmm, yet most of the 'Gurus' are still telling 'newbies' about keywords, must use them etc. http://www.foracnenomore.com
Ryan Lalonde
· 2 months ago
Well, meta tags are a really cheap way to get traffic to your website. It's good that Google doesn't use them.
MarketingTide
· 2 months ago
As the post said, most webmasters have known about this for years, however I almost always include a keywords tag, not for Google but for other search engines and there are many other sites/directories that crawl pages and actually use the keywords tag, so it's a good idea to include it for what it's worth...interesting video, thanks for posting!
nickmattern
· 2 months ago
While the META tags don't help you rank, they DO play a role with conversions and in getting people into your site. Description tags for the SERP returned URL, especially in a highly competitive query, can greatly influence what SERP result the user clicks on. The key is to test-test-test-test and test some more!
Andreas
· 2 months ago
This is simply not true. Meta keywords have helped my sites for many years. And I added a few relevant meta keywords to a site and Google traffic is up 30 - 40 % after two weeks.
seowizzards
· 2 months ago
hate to say it, but well DAH...... this is old news. Yahoo and Bing may still look at it though....
Used cars by owner
· 2 months ago
Google is daily updating its algorithm and it makes sense with the current criteria of search results. These varying patterns for search results almost make difference in search ranking as well.
Jw
· 2 months ago
I've just spent ages tagging up a client's website!
On the bright side it will now save some SEO effort.
All Comments
Makes you wonder what your SEO "Specialists" have been doing in re: to Meta Tags that many have been paying for this service for all these years.
http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-fa...
Yup, sad but true - content is king, which is better for all.
Except the idiot that told me to pay for rankings!
I seem to only use the meta description as a sort of adwords ad. With a call to action and phone number or something of the like. This has been known for a while, you just never heard it straight from the source till now.
Keywords are most likely used for adsense, adwords purposes from my own experience if blog/site had no keywords it took 20 minutes to update the adwords.
With keywords took 1 second.
URL and domains are more important than ever. Not to mention content =) Hoorrraay!!
Thank you Matt, I hope your cat is doing well.
20 fresh euros in vain ...
I can't believe I paid $50,000 for advice like that... I'll be firing my SEO guy now. :(
<meta name="keywords" content="web analytics,web statistics,counter,tracking">
All together now!...You can't get better than a nice bit of Meta! La La La La Laaa!
http://www.foracnenomore.com
On the bright side it will now save some SEO effort.