Does it matter if the meta description and meta keywords come before the title tag in the
-
The way our site was built, engineers put the title tag blow the meta desc. and meta keywords. I asked to have it changed based on the best practice of putting the most important content first, but apparently doing this will cause a major ripple effect in the way the site was engineered. Will we lose out on full SEO benefit with this structure? Should I stand down?
<title></p></title>
-
Actually, Bing has said that a bad meta keywords (spammy) can be a negative signal to them.
-
And with Google testing out things on a daily basis, it's hard to determine with just one test if it was you or them.
-
In fact, the example they use on that link has description above title.
-
Regarding testing, I read one article where the guy did an extensive test and saw results increased when the title was above the description, but I couldn't really validate who this person was or what kind of test he did. He just said, "I did a test and results were better." (Not very scientific)
And yes keywords don't help according to President Cutts. That has been known for quite some time now. But no one has come out and said they hurt either. And believe it or not, there are other search engines out there besides Google. Quite a few, actually. Our meta keyword tags draw on the title tag keywords only. We do not stuff.
-
I can't find anything from Google that talks about order of importance in this case. They list the tags that they understand at https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/79812?hl=en and just say to have them in the head section.
-
I don't have proof that what I said was scientifically proven as I haven't tested it, nor do I want to test it on a live site. Looking at all the best practices docs online you'll repeatedly see that title is recommended above the description. As for keyword tag http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/keywords-meta-tag-in-web-search/
-
Do you have proof that "title" before "description" equates to better rankings? I have not found a definitive answer one way or the other.
Also, I agree about keywords. Good news is that it is dynamically generated and programmatically included with no effort.
-
Title should go first as that's one of the most important factors for SEO and sticking to best practices is encouraged.
Also using meta keywords is so 1999 that not a single person I know recommends the practice.
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
-
Home Page Title - Google Overriding my Title Tag
Hi, We have noticed our home page title tag has now been replaced by our brand name (by Google I'm assuming). We have also noted that the page is dropping off SERPS for our main keywords, I suspect they are related but ofc I cant be sure. I know the recent Google update has impacted titles but I wasn't sure if it would apply here. Has anyone any advice on this and/or having the same issue? We normally rank well for grass seed (UK search) https://thegrasspeople.com/ I also noticed some strange mark up in our source code which seems to have been left behind by Sketch - we are getting this removed. <title>Combined Shape</title> <desc>Created with Sketch.</desc> Chris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chris_Mc0 -
Keywords for product title
Hi, I am trying set the product title for my product that I sell online, I have more than 300 products, I am now doing keywords research, any suggestion of the monthly search volume I should aim for each keyword? I just started and selling engagement rings
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | up8772910 -
Tool to identify if meta description are showing?
Hi we have a Ecommerce client with 1000s of meta descriptions, we have noticed that some meta descriptions are not showing properly, we want to pull and see which ones are showing on Google SERP results. You can use tools like screaming frog to pull meta description from page, but we want to see if it's showing for certain keywords. Any ideas on how to automate this? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brianna00 -
How To Optimize A Page For Multiple Keywords
Hi Guys, In this video by Brian Dean he talks about how to go about optimising for multiple keywords. He basically said the main factors for optimising a page for multiple keywords are the following: Identify other keywords with same search intent as your primary keyword. Add them to title tag strategically, don't stuff them in there. Add as many of those keywords as h2 tags into the content, again when it makes sense. Are there any other more advanced ways you can use to optimize a page for multiple keywords with same search intent that could be good? Any suggestions would be very much appreciated! Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | spyaccounts110 -
Title tag: Long tail words or keyword dilution?
Hi all, I am a newbie to SEO. Lately, I have been struggling to optimize my title tag. Ones say that we should have long tail words in title tags because long tail words improve click through rate and generate quality leads. On the other hand, ones say that putting other words in the title tag will dilute the main keyword that my page ranks for. Do keywords really dilute each other in the title tags? I am really confused. Let me give this an example: Web Design Services | Company Name Web Design Services with Conversion Focused | Company Name Which one would you prefer and why? Thank you. 😄 Best, Raymond
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Raymondlee0 -
Google overriding meta description - retrospective?
Hi all, we run a furniture store and our results in Google.co.uk almost always use the page's content as the description in the search results, even though we have a correctly implemented meta description tag. The rival's pages that rank above and below us almost always show the ranking page's meta description in Google's results page. Our developer seems to think it's because we added the meta description tags long after the pages were first indexed by Google and he seems to think Google has "fixed" on the page content and is happy with that over our meta description ...but I've never heard of that before. Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bee1590 -
Importance - meta title keyword
HI I want to find out how important people think it is to have the keyword as the first word in the meta title? Is this something that would even make a difference?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Meta tag description Usage
Do i wanna put meta tags as separate description that is not in the particular web page ,Normally i put meta description as 155 character from first paragraph of the web page .so do i need put a unique meta description ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | innofidelity0