Meta description & Meta keywords
-
Good morning,
One of our HTML experts, just told me that Google is not reading meta keywords or meta description - and they (or one of them) are no longer part of my website SEO ranking
Do you know where can i read about it?
Are other SE do look at these parameters?
Thank you
SEOWiseUs
-
Thanks Keri!
-
I don't have hard data, but my understanding is that Google doesn't look at meta descriptions for rankings but they are important in helping CTR when they're shown in the SERPs.
-
This is very interesting, I'm getting conflicting opinions from the guys here at work and on the Q&A here. Like you say, some major website use the tag as well.
It would be awesome if anyone from Moz has some actual data on this, hint, hint
-
the general consensus is that Google does make use of the Description, more specifically used in the brief description in results among other user experience related items. It is widely accepted that the description is not used as a metric for ranking though. I personally take exception to this line of thought, because I have definitly seen an effect on rankings when a description has been optimized. I am not going to say this happens 100% of the time, however i have seen a direct correlation.
The keywords tag is completly irrelevant and can cause a number of problems. Two are, Bing actually considers it a spam flag and by having the keywords tags it allows competitors to easily see what you are optimizing for....as someone already mentioned. I do find it interesting that some reputable sites are using it. So perhaps i am missing out on some good info....
-
thank you very much
-
thank you very much
-
You can read more about the meta discription on the offical google website here
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=79812
They do use meta description, though bear in mind they don't have to. So you will find that in some rsearch results they will change it.
You can read (and watch a video) about the meta keywords here
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html
That's Matt Cutts, who is head of web spam at google.
Hope that clear things up for you!
-
meta keywords are no longer read by google. It's been abused in the past and it's not relevant anymore.
Drop the meta keywords as it gives valuable information to your competition on which keywords you target .
the meta description is still working and relevant, and should be part of your SEO strategy,
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Have you ever changed the logo anchor text from "logo" to "keyword"? How Google considers?
Hi all, We know that generally logo with the website homepage link is the first link crawled by Google and other search engines. Can we change the anchor text from "logo" to "keyword"? Have any one tried or seen others doing? How Google considers it? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz1 -
Keyword cannibalization or linking structure?
Hi all, Recently I got an answer from this community about "why our login page is ranking but not my homepage for primary keyword"? Possibilities are keyword cannibalization or linking structure. In our case, our homepage is not ranking for "primary keyword" but ranking for other keywords. If it is linking structure, what might be wrong? Like do we need to unlink login page from many internal links? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
How much does a keyword focused domain matter today?
Is it still better to choose a keyword focused domain lets say over a branded domain in today's world? How much of a part does that have in the grand scheme of things?
Algorithm Updates | | HiddenPeak0 -
Does the page title keyword count in anchor text when link is web address?
If someone links to my plumbing site with this link as the anchor text: http://www.plumbers.com/austin-plumbers.html does the key phrase "austin plumbers" get counted in the anchor text by google or is this a sample of anchor text that google ignores? Thanks mozzers! Ron
Algorithm Updates | | Ron100 -
Keywords in Footer
Do keywords in the footer carry the same weight as keywords on the rest of the page? Should we avoid having some keywords in the footer?
Algorithm Updates | | bloomnation0 -
Sharp Drop in SERP Ranking for Specific Keyword
I'm sure this happens to a lot of people for a lot of different reasons. My pages http://www.cleanedison.com/leed and http://www.cleanedison.com/courses/leed-green-associate suddenly dropped off the map over the past 2 weeks for the keyword "LEED Certification" I tried to limit the number of times "LEED" was mentioned on the first URL (/leed) to try to combat an over-optimization penalty but I did not for the second (/leed-green-associate). Both of them have fallen precipitously and are no where to be found on Google. What can I do to troubleshoot this? Is there anyway to guard against this in the future?
Algorithm Updates | | CleanEdisonInc0 -
How to calculate Keyword Difficulty
In which way is calculated the percentage of Keyword Difficulty? What are the parameters you consider? Thank you very much Francesco
Algorithm Updates | | seomoznicchia0 -
Domain Authority and Google keywords
Hi there, We have a domain authority of 33, one of our competitors has an authority of 10, yet they appear to list higher on many keyword searches in google. Is there a reason for this? Our site is 5 months old, and their site is over 3 yrs old. Thanks for your feedback 🙂
Algorithm Updates | | PHDAustralia680