Meta Tags (again)
-
Hey,
I know this has been discussed to death but look back through previous postings there doesn't seem to be a consensus on the exact Meta tags that an eCommerce site should include, specifically whether to remove the keyword tag or not since it is believed that Yahoo potentially still makes use of it.
Currently our homepage has the following Meta Tags:
<title>Buy Printer Cartridges | Ink and Toner Cartridge for Inkjet and Laser Printers</title>
Description" content="<a class="attribute-value">Visit Refresh Cartridges for great prices on ink cartridges, toner cartridges, ink, printers and accessories.</a>" />
Keywords" content="<a class="attribute-value">ink cartridges, cheap cartridges, inkjet cartridges, inkjet ink cartridges, ink cartridge, printer ink cartridges, laser cartridges, toner, laser printers</a>" />
Content-Type" content="<a class="attribute-value">text/html; charset=iso-8859-1</a>"/>
author" content="<a class="attribute-value">Ink Cartridges, Inkjet Cartridge, Printer Cartridge, Toner Cartridges Refresh Cartridges</a>" />
expires" content="<a class="attribute-value">0</a>" />
robots" content="<a class="attribute-value">noodp,index,follow</a>" />
Language" content="<a class="attribute-value">English</a>" />
Cache-Control" content="<a class="attribute-value">Public</a>" />
verify-v1" content="<a class="attribute-value">sJXqAAWP6ar/LTEOMyUgG6nqothxk62tJTid+ryBJxo=</a>" />
viewport" content="<a class="attribute-value">width=1024</a>" />
This is too messy but before I do something drastic that I'll possibly regret please can you confirm that, in your opinion, I am best to remove everything with the exception of this:
<title>Buy Printer Cartridges | Ink and Toner Cartridge for Inkjet and Laser Printers</title>
Description" content="<a class="attribute-value">Visit Refresh Cartridges for great prices on ink cartridges, toner cartridges, ink, printers and accessories.</a>" />
Content-Type" content="<a class="attribute-value">text/html; charset=iso-8859-1</a>"/>
viewport" content="<a class="attribute-value">width=1024</a>" />I realise there is a verify-v1 tag in there but this can be done through a file on our server so while cleaning up that might as well go. Would there be an argument for keeping any of the other tags or are they all pretty much redundant now? Many thanks! Chris
-
Thank you very much!
-
I cant find the bit about spelling anymore, but I did find this
"Meta Keywords (fill them in if you like, keep it short and relevant, but not a big ranking factor)" -
Mr. Mosley, I remember that Duane said a few years ago that it was a 'signal' but if memory serves - wasn't it a spam signal not a ranking signal?
-
Bing uses Keywords I would keep them,
But don't try to spam them, I think Bing said something like they only use them if they are relevant to your content, adding different spelling and mis-spelt keywords was a recommendation
-
Yeah, the author in particular looks as spammy as a well known Monty Python sketch.
Thanks for your help.
-
They are all fine to leave in there Chris. If you wish to upload the file to the root of the server instead of having the verify in there, that is perfectly acceptable.
Edit-- I should probably change the Meta Author though. What you have there might be seen as a bit of a bad practice by Google.
-Andy
-
Cheers Andy, would you also remove all of these?
author" content="<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ink Cartridges, Inkjet Cartridge, Printer Cartridge, Toner Cartridges Refresh Cartridges</a>" />
expires" content="<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank">0</a>" />
robots" content="<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank">noodp,index,follow</a>" />
Language" content="<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank">English</a>" />
Cache-Control" content="<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Public</a>" />
verify-v1" content="<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sJXqAAWP6ar/LTEOMyUgG6nqothxk62tJTid+ryBJxo=</a>" /> -
Hi Chris,
I always advise every client to remove the Meta Keywords. Although Google doesn't make any use of them, if they are over-used, they can easily be seen as a way to keyword-spam. If memory serves, the MOZ page score gives this a negative if found, or it used to.
At best, they will do nothing for you - at worst, they can cause you issues.
-Andy
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
-
Translating meta tags using WPML and AIO SEO
Having a heck of a time finding info on this one... We're working on a multilingual website which uses WPML. I've used the All in One SEO plugin to customize meta data (title, description, etc). These strings do not appear in the list of translations in WPML. Does anyone have any experience with this setup? How do you enable WPML to translate meta data set via the AIO plugin? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jonmc0 -
Is Google creating meta descriptions on the fly?
I'm doing some competitor analysis for a client. I'm looking at the client's title tags and meta descriptions for specific search results, in comparison to their main competitor. I'm trying to establish if the client is ranking higher due to better relevance, or just because they have higher PA and DA. It appears to be the latter. Observations: For both the client and their competitor, their home pages appear in the results much more frequently than specific landing pages The meta description Google chooses to display in the search results for the home page does not always match the ACTUAL meta description for the page and appears to vary depending on the specific search query Questions: Does Google create meta descriptions on the fly? Is this an example of Google using semantic search? And if so, why are we bothering to type customised meta descriptions for specific pages, if Google is just going to recreate them anyway? Is Google displaying results of the home pages simply because they cannot find pages more relevant (ie. if we produced landing pages more relevant to these specific search queries, would Google rank them higher)?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | muzzmoz0 -
Duplicate title tags due to ?_escaped_fragment_=
Duplicate title tags due to /?escaped_fragment= in the serps, it look like this http://www.site.com/25621/post-name/#! http://www.site.com/25621/post-name/ Does anyone know what the best fix is for this and does this affect the sites performance. Regards T
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Taiger0 -
Organic Listings showing Google Tag Manager + Google Page Title...?
I'm a bit stumped with this. I optimise all my titles etc for Australia - and now the organic liatings are showing something strange. For example ( we sell health supplements ) Meta title = "My Product , Buy Online Australia" If I type "My Product" - the title in the organic listings says "My Product - My Company Limited" - and the only place I can see it getting that from is a combination of Meta Data used in Google Tag Manager + the Name on my Google places page. This is much more obvious for categories.. but it's a pain in the butt. If I type "My Product Australia" Then the original "My Product , Buy Online Australia" comes up. Any ideas on policy etc? I have taken the "Limited" off the Google business page - so hopefully this will change over time - but I can't find any information on why google would do something like this. If you had shed any light on this - would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | s_EOgi_Bear0 -
Best Practices for Homepage Title Tag
Hi, I would like to know if there is any update about the best practices for the homepage title tag. I mean, a couple of years ago, it was still working placing main keywords in the homepage title tag. But since the last google SERP update, the number of characters that are being shown were reduced, and now we try to work with 55 and 56 characters. That has reduced our capacity of including many keywords on the title tag. Besides, search engines are smarter now to choose the correct inner page to show in SERP. But I am wondering if the Homepage Title should have a branded orientation or should include main keywords, cause it is still working that strategy. I would appreciatte any update in this issue. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | teconsite0 -
Google not displaying meta description
Hi, one of my clients is receiving the following error in SERP - "A description of the page is not available because of this site's robots.txt". The site is built on WordPress and I realized that by default, the settings were checked to blocks bots from crawling the site. So, I turned it off, fixed robots.txt and submitted the sitemap again. Since, then it's been almost 10 days, the problem still exists. Can anyone tell me what should be done to fix it or if there's a way to get Google to recrawl the pages again.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mayanksaxena0 -
Cross Domain Rel Canonical tags vs. Rel Canonical Tags for internal webpages
Today I noticed that one of my colleagues was pointing rel canonical tags to a third party domain on a few specific pages on a client's website. This was a standard rel canonical tag that was written Up to this point I haven't seen too many webmasters point a rel canonical to a third party domain. However after doing some reading in the Google Webmaster Tools blog I realized that cross domain rel canonicals are indeed a viable strategy to avoid duplicate content. My question is this; should rel canonical tags be written the same way when dealing with internal duplicate content vs. external duplicate content? Would a rel=author tag be more appropriate when addressing 3rd party website duplicate content issues? Any feedback would be appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VanguardCommunications0 -
Should the Title Tag and the H1 Tag not be the same or not anymore and can that be classed as over optimization?
Hi All, I am just evaluating my title tags, H1,H2's etc and wondered in light of the google algorithm changes over the last 12 months , we should look at more diversity as opposed to things possibly looking over optimized... Originally (18 months ago) my Title tags considered of 2/3 keyword phrases , then I reduced this to my keyword phrase | Brand Name but a majority of my H1's and H2's had the same keyword phrases. Historically this has served us very well and rankings for good but over the last 12 months, we were hit by panda, hummingbird etc...and which we are trying to recover from and from what I have read, the rules have changed with regards to good seo./ over optimized SEO. We have been writting unique content , making more of our links branded etc to sort things out from that perspective but on the page stuff is just as important so I would like to get this right. I am now thinking , that I may be getting penalized if my H1 and title's , H2 are the same ? and that they should be obviously related but different. H2's again , need to be related but not the same as either of the above. Is that how things should be these days ? from what I have read about this, most of the articles are not that recent so I don't what to do what is now redundant advice Any advice greatly appreciated. Thanks Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120