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Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you?
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Subject: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: katlaughing Date: 29 Aug 07 - 07:38 PM I searched, oh yea, I searched, but most things posted about meta tags were ages old, I mean really old or didn't come up in the Search. So anyway...I am seeing a lot of info on the internet that says most search engines don't look for meta tags any more, but I did find one fellah who wrote as if he knew what he was talking about, who went through them in a list and told which ones he recommended and why.Being a sort of non-trusting soul sans Mudcat, here I am asking for your take on such things. Do you use meta-tags? If not what do you rely on for getting your website noticed by the search engines? Just content? Thanks! kat |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: TheSnail Date: 29 Aug 07 - 08:22 PM Get links from other sites. Contact plausibly related websites and say "I'll link to you if you link to me". I've heard that search engines ignore meta tags but they're easy to do so you might as well. Have relevant content on your top level page. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: Malcolm Douglas Date: 29 Aug 07 - 08:27 PM They aren't really necessary any more, but the general consensus seems to be that they do no harm, and can be used to mark the page with useful references that aren't included in the body text. I use them on most of the sites I run, but that's mainly out of habit; I doubt if they make a great deal of difference nowadays. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: Bert Date: 30 Aug 07 - 12:11 AM Well to quote a notable authority I have to say "NOPE". I used to use them a while back and then they just stopped working so I don't bother with them any more. As TheSnail says. Get links from other sites. I have heard that a lot of site activity works, but I don't know that for sure. I googled "bert hansell" the other day and got a couple of hits for newgatesknocker. I couldn't figure out why those particular hits came up though. What do you use on your website Garg? |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 30 Aug 07 - 01:05 AM Friends in friendly places are a deffinate PLUS.
Using multiple languages also helps.
Updating material (daily) for "the bots" is good.
Recognizing that there are MANY other engines than Yahoo/Google.
Tag all photos with more than a number/letter.
Read and stay current: http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=reports
http://www.macworld.com/2007/02/secrets/marchcreate/index.php |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: Bert Date: 30 Aug 07 - 01:32 AM Thanks me ol' china. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 30 Aug 07 - 01:54 AM "I use them on most of the sites I run, but that's mainly out of habit" As Malcolm says ... and it can help with a bit of 'docomentation'... BTW the radio is playing 'Wired For Sound' ... As reference to that old song inplies, things often show great promise, or are touted for wonderful reasons, and to misquote an old saying 'the real world does just what it damn well pleases'... "Tag all photos with more than a number/letter." Actually ALL graphics should have some useful 'ALT=' text stuff, this also assists the sight impaired. "there are MANY other engines than Yahoo/Google." This is very true, and means you don't have to just write your pages in a way designed to 'return top spot' on Google, but if most people only use Google... actually, you may score higher on some of those other search engines, which means that the relatively few who use them may have more chance of lacating you... Google MAY die one day... :-) besides which, for specialised subjects, some such search engines may actually be a better way to find such sites. As far as getting on the lists on other sites that can be good, but I refer you to |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 30 Aug 07 - 02:11 AM ooops... As far as getting on the lists on other sites that can be good, but offer you a caution and refer you to Zangelding... |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: treewind Date: 30 Aug 07 - 03:51 AM Which meta tags? They have lots of uses. You're all talking about KEYWORD metatags, I think. Google and many other search engines take little or no notice of KEYWORD meta tags becasue they are too easy to abuse, but a DESCRIPTION meta tag is very useful as Google (for example) displays it on the results page if it exists, otherwise it has to use a header or the first text on the page which may not be a good description of your site. So though KEYWORD meta tags don't get you any further up the list, a well-worded description metatag will make it clear to the user whether your entry is what (s)he's looking for. (meta tags are used for other things like auto-redirecting too, but I'm being geeky and pedantic now...) Anahata |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: GUEST, Sminky Date: 30 Aug 07 - 06:37 AM Meta tags are mandatory for all European central/local government websites. They are more allied to resource description and their time will come with the development of the Semantic Web. Search engines are in development which will only recognise meta-tags. Search engine optimization (Google: SEO) is a different animal. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: treewind Date: 30 Aug 07 - 07:26 AM "Search engines are in development which will only recognise meta tags." That's apparently a big step backwards that requires further explanation. Site owners used to put lots of popular but irrelevant keywords in their meta tags to get listed by search engines, and that's why the search engines started ignoring keyword meta tags and looking at content, and even then having to analyse it carefully to detect abuse. Anahata |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: GUEST, Sminky Date: 30 Aug 07 - 09:09 AM It's actually a long-overdue step forwards. By categorizing each resource (which includes web pages) search engines will be better able to sift out irrelevant sites. For example: subject: folk music category: English Traditional Songs description: a collection of English traditional songs including lyrics and sheet music creator: Joe Bloggs format: text, gif coverage.spatial: England coverage.temporal: medieval-1910 language: english keywords: folk music english traditional songs Your search engine could then look for, say, all web pages whose subject is 'folk music' AND whose category is 'English Traditional Songs' AND whose format is 'gif'. Of course, it is open to abuse - but so is the present system. At least this method introduces an element of structure into what can only be called the chaos we have at the moment. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: treewind Date: 30 Aug 07 - 11:24 AM That looks like it could be a good system if enough sites and search engines support it properly and it is sufficiently abuse-resistant, but the old unstructured keywords system certainly failed because of abuse. There will still be a need for search by content the way Google and others do it. Anahata |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 30 Aug 07 - 09:42 PM I just created a site for a friend and learned: 1) You should include a SHORT meta description. Google only prints out the first so many words - not many. Then if Google finds subpages - have them say something else important - continue what was said on the first page. 2) I suspect having the word homepage in your description helps. 3) Try to have the relevant search words in your domain name or at least your page title. Even add some words in your title if you have to. 4) Use important words early in the page. 5) As far as linking to the page - I've gone so far as to put a link in white text on my pages to help other friends - BUT somewhere I read that Google frowns on this and if they catch you, will punish you. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: Bert Date: 31 Aug 07 - 12:16 AM Mary, could you explain 5) a little futher for this old fart please. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 31 Aug 07 - 12:52 AM Bert/Mary....don't worry....Bots don't care about shite....they read everything.
Max's "invisable" autograph is how the world first noted his new address and change in employers. It is sort of an insider's "joke".....even Wolfgang Schnider embedded the URL "backdoor" to Mudcat into his 55 plus pages of PowerPoint presentation back in the 90's......somewhere before chapter seven "Mistakes."
HAVE FUN!
Sincerely,
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 31 Aug 07 - 06:29 AM One of the easiet ways to get recognized - takes continual work.
It is noted in the powerpoint presentation with reference to John Hell.
Arbeitspsychologie
http://wwwpsy.uni-muenster.de
* H igh quality content |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 31 Aug 07 - 08:51 AM Bert, I didn't want to mess up the appearance of my page with a link that could be read by the casual reader - BUT - I wanted the BOTS to find it (and help out a friend's page by giving it more links), so I put it in white text. Like I said, I read somewhere (can't remember where) that that trick is like padding the meta tags by repeating the same word many times, Google frowns on it and will penalize a page ranking if they catch it. PS I noticed that ~6 months ago Google changed something. Now pages are listed that weren't previously anywhere in sight. kat, it seemed that earlier, if you were a small business, your best bet for a high listing was to put your URL on a directory or "linking site." Example: my local church was not listed (very high anyway) even when typing in the exact name and location. But if you found your way to the national listing of all churches of this denomination, there would be a link to it there. (because I sent it to them) Also, I suspect (don't know for sure) that Google somehow now uses possible abbreviations in domain names. Or at least, they can sense when a page is the genuine, official homepage of an organization and this gives a much higher weight to the ranking algorithm. Example: a year ago, a photography site I created wasn't listed very high in the Google rankings, even when you typed the exact name. It's domain name is: somethingphoto.com Now it's listed number one when you just type something photography in the Google search. But as Dennis Miller says, "That's just my opinion, I could be wrong." *********************************** While I'm here... Does anyone know how to force a user's computer to refresh each time it visits a page? This is important to a couple of real estate sites I maintain. I read that you can force refreshes of your page - the longest amount of time is still in seconds - news sites use this - but for me it's overkill. I tried putting an expire tag with a date earlier than the date I wrote the page, but this doesn't work. I can't figure out how often the page is refreshed, or for which browsers, or if it's dependent on the hosting service. It's noticeable when I'm updating pages (and the client is looking at it often). The changes aren't there without a browser refresh, at least for a time. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: GUEST,Me Date: 31 Aug 07 - 09:25 AM Refreshes |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 31 Aug 07 - 10:23 AM Thanks Me, that summarizes the methods I've used, but I would still prefer an automatic, unseen refresh when the page is loaded. method 1. Put a button on the page (JavaScript) that the user has to click. (I finally put this on one of the real estate sites because the owner kept checking it while I was updating it.) method 2. The meta tag which is automatic, but is in seconds. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: katlaughing Date: 31 Aug 07 - 11:18 AM Thanks, Mary. I have listed both of my sites with google and read their stuff for "webmasters." So, I have focussed more on my content description than meta tags, but I added the few which were recommended in the article I referenced back up there a few posts. I know I have more to do, but at the moment, they load quickly and are easy to use. Thanks, folks, And, somewhat unrelated but since you're all techie-types anyone know what software to use to publish a book on CD? The only thing called "writer" at Adobe was for WIN95...it seems they have new programs for it and I am not sure of which one to use and/or buy. The one i know the pros use is expensive! I want to be able to sell the book on CD with protection against copying, etc. Thanks, again! |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: treewind Date: 31 Aug 07 - 11:39 AM I think what you want is this: <META HTTP-EQUIV="CACHE-CONTROL" CONTENT="NO-CACHE">This tells the browser not to cache the page. However it may fail to have that effect on proxy servers in between, because it's not a proper http header. To get "cache-control: no-cache" sent as a real http header, you have to do some configuring on the server itself, which you may not be allowed to do, of course. Anahata |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 31 Aug 07 - 05:26 PM Thanks! |
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Subject: RE: Tech: To meta tag or not? Do you? From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 31 Aug 07 - 08:03 PM "Bots don't care about shite....they read everything." unless you put in "<meta name="robots" content="index, nofollow">" Re: "<META HTTP-EQUIV="CACHE-CONTROL" CONTENT="NO-CACHE">" Hmmm, I used "<meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache">" is this now superceded? and also "<meta name="Author" http-equiv="Author" content="Robin Hayes">" "<meta name="generator" content="Robin Ver 1.0, MSWin9X WordPad and CommonSense© Ver 1.0">" "<meta name="formatter" content="Robin Ver 1.0 and CommonSense© Ver 1.0">" :-) |
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