A Seo question? and meta keywords question?

I’m not Gary but that is also my understanding of the meta keywords and description tags. Bottom line I don’t think it hurts to have them there as long as they aren’t duplicates of each other. They should be as unique as possible, that also goes for the page titles.

I don’t know who Gary is, but your understanding of how the keywords and description tags work with Google is spot on. :hattip:

@Simmo! 189152 wrote:

As I understand it, Google ignores the META Keywords tag, but it’s still worth having for some of the smaller search engines. I think I’m right in saying too that Google doesn’t take the META description tag into account when calculating search engine positions, but it is still very important for getting your message over to potential clickers! Maybe Gary can confirm.

Hi Gamephoto,
Sorry to chime in late. Simmo, Randy, Jonathen are all correct.

I would also add that if the searched keywords are in the description that the SE’s use, if and when they use them, just like your title and URL they become bolded which has proven to increase click through’s.

This is another argument for having keyword-rich URL’s.

Google does use these to a point though, whether they say they do or not. The question would be do they use they to determine relevancy, in their ranking algorithm and to what extent?

They do look at meta descriptions because they recommend to use language specific descriptions so that they can determine the language of the page. This is necessary because when you use Google outside of areas where English is the primary language , the default will show a language preference. If your searching from a French IP you will get the option under the search box to get “Pages from the Web” , “Pages from France” or “Pages in French”. So if you are targeting languages other than English, its even more important to use meta descriptions.

Lastly, Google will display between 152-154 characters. According to the experts you should use all the characters. Reasons vary from “bulk translates mentally into being a good informative source”, to “it makes more information about the site available so therefore you have more of an opportunity to get the click”.

I wouldn’t overdo it either. Use your keyword once, and a variation of it like the plural version. I always try to put the appropriate CTA (call to action) here as well. If the targeted keyword is “Free Bingo” I want to be sure this is in the description and near the beginning. The URL will also be /free-bingo/ so that this becomes highlighted as well.

GaryTheScubaGuy

Google cares about the meta tag description if you are targeting alternative languages under a non-country specific domain.