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
-
Why is the AMP tool saying I have invalid structured data when the structured data tool shows no errors?
Why is the AMP tool saying there's missing or invalid structured data on http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/flavorful-chicken-fajitas/amp when the structured data tool shows no errors? In addition, I'm not able to see a preview of the rich card in the AMP tool like I can for other recipes like https://allrecipes.com/recipe/19621/eggs-on-the-grill/amp/. If you check https://allrecipes.com/recipe/19621/eggs-on-the-grill/amp in the AMP tool, we get this message: "Page has valid structured data. This page is eligible for extended AMP features." Google has instructions on how to get rich cards for recipes (https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/recipes), but i'm not sure if we're violating anything other than image aspect ratio. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | dianedragan0 -
Keyword Targeting - How to Properly Target Two Similar Terms?
Hi all, So I have a question about "best practices" when you have two unique, but highly similar keywords you are targeting. Let's use the examples of "raincoats for women," which gets 9,900 searches a month, and "rain jackets for women," which gets 4,400. I am in the process of selecting keywords for my client's "keyword portfolio" and need to come up with a strategy when faced with two similar keywords that use different terminology. I'm well aware that there should only be one page for "women's raincoats" but there is no doubt in my mind that Google will give preferential treatment to whichever version of the keyword (raincoats/rain jackets) I include in my title tag, meta description, content, etc. I know that the modern philosophy is that Google is sophisticated enough to understand that the two words are essentially synonymous. That said, would you A) only pick "raincoats for women" for your client's keyword portfolio and focus exclusively on that term in your optimizations? b) pick both terms and try to strike an even balance between both in your optimizations? c) pick both terms and only optimize for "raincoats for women" and hope that "rain jackets for women" gets some peripheral benefit from your optimizations via Google's understanding of synonyms? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | FPD_NYC0 -
How on earth is a site with ONE LINK ranking so well for a competitive keyword?
Ok, so I'm sure you get the gist of what I'm asking about in my question. The query is 'diy kitchens' in Google UK and the website is kitchens4diy[dot]com - which is ranking in third from my viewing. The thing is, the site has just ONE BACKLINK and has done for a good while. Yet, it's ranking really well. What gives?
Algorithm Updates | | Webrevolve0 -
Sub-domains and keyword rich domains
Hello All I'm hoping for some opinions as i am confused as to the best action for me to take. The problem:
Algorithm Updates | | jonny512379
Although i say the below, we have never been penalised by Google, not taken part in any bad link building and don't do too bad with SERP. but i worry Google may not like what i do these days. We have one main site that is broken down into areas/cities (i,e London, Manchester, etc) so the domain looks like www.domain.co.uk/London But in addition to this we also use Sub-domains to target popular areas (i,e. http://London.domain.co.uk).
These sub-domains take the content from the main site but of course only display results relevant to London and are optimised for "London + Keyword"
Any page that gets duplicated (i.e London.domain.co.uk/profile123 and www.domain.co.uk/profile123 are ALMOST the same content) we add a rel="canonical" link that points to the main domain+page on www.
All these sites have a large amount of links back to www.domain.co.uk/?Page so the user can also search in other areas other then London, etc. This method has worked well for us and is popular with both users and Google search results. All sites/sub-domains are added to GWT under the same account and all sites have unique sitemaps. I do however worry that Google may class this as link manipulation owing to the amount of links pointing back to the main domain and its pages (this is not the reason we use the sub-domains though) In addition to the above sub-domains we have a few domain names (5/6) that are keyword rich that we also place the same content on (i,e www.manchester-keyword.co.uk would show only content relevant to Manchester), and again these sites have links back to the main domain, so users can navigate other areas of the UK. I worry that these additional domains may also not be liked by Google What do people think? I have started to reduce/replace some of the additional keyword rich domains with sub-domains from the main site and then 301 the keyword rich domain (i.e. www.manchester-Keyword.co.uk now goes to http://Manchester.domain.co.uk) as i feel sub-domains may not be penalised as much as unique domains are.
There are domains that i dont really want to 301 as they bring in good amounts of traffic and users have bookmarked them, etc. Any opinions or what you think i should do would be great, as i really worry that if Google stops giving us good results, i'm in real trouble. Although im not sure if what we do is wrong with Google or not.0 -
Does Word Order Matter in Local Keywords?
We do a lot of local SEO, and we're wondering if it's better to target "keyword location" or "location keyword"? Does it affect ranking and keyword difficulty if we're trying to rank for "plumbing appleton" or "appleton plumbing"? Any insight would be great.
Algorithm Updates | | optimalwebinc0 -
Annex city & citations
The large city (A) Annexed small city B (in 2007) where we have a few car dealership locations. The problem is that the post office still recognizes city B, so for the most part our citations are still for city B, but we want to have local optimization for City A AND also have consistent address information across the website (citations). What are your suggestions on going about this the right way so we are optimized for the large city & our citations are consistent?
Algorithm Updates | | autoczar0 -
Keyword density and meta tags
Hi, I've just checked the number of keywords appearing on my website's pages. On some of them the keyword density was way too high (7-10%) if you included the meta tags, but all under 3.5% if I didn't include the keywords and description meta tags. So my question is - when looking at number of keywords used per page, do I have to worry about what's in those meta tags? Do the keywords in there count towards keyword density / number of keywords per page? Thanks, Luke
Algorithm Updates | | McTaggart0 -
Question relates to mobile site & duplicate content.
We are working on the mobile version of a large site (migraine.com) and will be using a separate theme for it (directing visitors to m.migraine.com)- what are the necessary code or other important step we should take so that we do get penalized for having duplicate content? Thank you in advance for your responses
Algorithm Updates | | OlivierChateau0