Are meta tags useless?
-
I thought they were, but I don't work for a full-fledged SEO agency. I'm a copywriter at a marketing firm so my SEO efforts are generally limited to inserting keywords into on-page content, page titles, and URLs.
However, one of our clients works with an SEO agency. Whenever we add a new page to the client's website, they ask the SEO agency for keyword recommendations, which are then passed along to us to implement. The recommendations always include meta tags, so I guess I was wrong about them being useless?
Can anyone tell me the purpose of meta tags? Thanks!
-
View the page source (right click + view page source), look in the section. Youll see it -
<meta name="keywords" content="keyword1, keyword2" /> Tip: if theres a lot of stuff crammed into the HEAD section, just CTRL-F and search for ``` (meta name="keywords") without the parenthesis
-
Simply view the source of a webpage and you can see the Meta Keyword tag in the HTML code. To view the source, go to a webpage, right click and select "View Page Source" and you'll see the HTML code. Hope that helps!
-
Thanks for the answer! That's basically what I thought.
But how can competitors see our client's meta keywords? Where do they show up?
-
You're opening a can with this question!
The efficacy of meta tags is much debated. Most people believe that the keyword meta tag has no effect whatsoever on SEO, and some believe the same to be true for the meta description.
The original purpose of the meta keywords tag was to help Search Engines understand what your page was about. After years of unabashed over-optimization, the tag slowly became less and less of a signal.
The meta description tag is a brief description of the page, and is sometimes used as the description in the SERPs. There are varying arguments on the efficacy of this tag as well, although it can be useful from a clickthrough conversion standpoint.
I'm sure youll get a lot of varying opinions on this one!
-
Meta Keywords are worthless. None of the major search engines use them as a ranking factor anymore. If anything, their use can actually have a negative impact since you will be revealing your targeted keywords to your competitors. (Most competent SEOs can determine your targeted keywords by looking at your site anyways but no need to make their job that much easier!)
That being said, Meta Description is still important, even if they aren't necessarily considered a ranking factor, they allow you to have control over the snippet of text that shows up under your listing in the SERPs.
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
-
Is Bing also ignoring meta Keywords tags?
Hi, I originally asked about pros (or lack of them) when it comes to using meta keywords tags here https://moz.com/community/q/importance-or-lack-of-meta-keywords-tags-and-tags-in-drupal. It was most likely related to Google, I guess. Is that the same if it comes to Bing as few sources are not sure how this SERP consider using meta keywords tags and people only speculating. Anyone has any kind of "confirmed" responses or experience? Thank you in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | Optimal_Strategies0 -
Multiple H1 tags on Squarespace blog page?
Hi All, I use Squarespace and while running my site (https://www.growmassagebusiness.com) through programs am seeing that my blog posts are being seen as one page with multiple H1 tags. I read through the SS help desk and found back in 2015 someone wrote that it's not a bit deal b/c of HTML5 and that the search engines will read each blog post as a sub-page. I'm not so sure about that and wondering what the experts think? If that is screwy then I'm considering possibly making each blog post it's own page rather than using their blog posting format.
On-Page Optimization | | rajam0 -
How unique should meta descriptions be?
This is something I've been wondering for a while but can't seem to find any advice on. My website features ~60 different companies, each having their own profile page. When optimizing for SEO, how unique should each page's meta description be? Put another way, can I be penalized if the descriptions are all identical except for the company name I include? Any thoughts, resources, or best practices are appreciated!
On-Page Optimization | | ericstites0 -
Blank Title and Description Tags
Hi guys. Some times web platforms that I do work on have pages that I normally do not optimize. They more often than not have blank meta titles and meta descriptions. If I put titles and descriptions on these pages, no matter how minor, would it help the site as a whole to rank better? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | oomdomarketing0 -
I do not want all my META descriptions to be unique.
Hi, I have maybe 20 categories (new) that I really like to have the same Meta description for all of them. The category names call out the use of their respective products. but, all of these categories are related to a much bigger global initiative. I don't have enough space in the title to discuss the individual terms as well as the broader project, so I would like the META to say something like "Products related to <this thing="" my="" customers="" care="" about="">from</this> However, I am extremely paranoid about adding 20-25 meta descriptions that are identical, because Google. Am I overthinking this and being paranoid about Panguin and Penda?
On-Page Optimization | | reallygoodstuff0 -
Thoughts on Results from Changing Title Tags
A number of the client's we represent have seen drops in rankings. The title tags on these sites are formatted old way of doing tilte: "Blue Widgets| Cheap Widgets | Metal Widgets". We are going to change them to the natural format: Acme Offers Blue, Metal Widgets for Any Budget." Just wondering if anyone has made similar changes post-penguin and if they've seen improved ranking from doing it.
On-Page Optimization | | TopFloor0 -
Tags creating duplicated content issue?
Hello i believe a lot of us use tags in our blogs as a way to categorize content and make it easy searchable but this usually (at lease in my case) cause duplicate content creation. For example, if one article has 2 tags like "SEO" & "Marketing", then this article will be visible and listed in 2 urls inside the blog like this domain.com/blog/seo and domain.com/blog/marketing In case of a blog with 300+ posts and dozens of different tags this is creating a huge issue. My question is 1. Is this really bad? 2. If yes how to fix it without removing tags?
On-Page Optimization | | Lakiscy0 -
Keyword Repetition in Title Tag
I am managing an online pharmacy website which has thousands of pages. I'm creating title tags for the pages that currently have automated tags.
On-Page Optimization | | pulseseo
I generally choose a word, find the next best alternative and merge them in the title.
Often this results in repetition of 2-3 words. Examples below:-
Title:- Skincare Treatment, Buy Skincare Products Discounted at Online Pharmacy Title:- Nebulisers, Buy Nebulisers UK Discounted at Online Pharmacy Title:- Electronic Dictionaries, Buy Best Electronic Dictionaries Discounted at Online Pharmacy Title:- Cat Skin Care, Buy Cat Skin Care Products Discounted at Online Pharmacy Are these OK or would Google penalize us for it?0