ILMV Posted November 6, 2008 Share Posted November 6, 2008 Hello All! Please tell me, what damage will having no meta data (description, keywords) do to a site rank. I know search results are based upon the keywords, and how often those keywords appear in the content etc. Whilst I always put them on my own site, I am working on a site with none, and I would like to at some point suggest implementing this key feature, can I have some key, hard bullet points to use in my 'pitch'. Many Thanks ILMV Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dropfaith Posted November 6, 2008 Share Posted November 6, 2008 all you really need to tell them is what is the point of having a website if nobody can ever find it. never fails for me to get them up there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILMV Posted November 6, 2008 Author Share Posted November 6, 2008 Exactly that, obviously not all search engines work in the same way, but the majority require some sort of meta data. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waynewex Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 Google, which owns the majority of the search engine market, uses the description meta tag. That meta tag allows you to optimise your page for certain keywords. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoltZ Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 If you don't have meta tags then you most likely won't be in the first page of google any time soon. If your not on the first page you probably won't get alot of hits. Whens the last time you went to the second page directly after searching something? :-\ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperBlue Posted November 11, 2008 Share Posted November 11, 2008 Not having a keywords meta tag shouldn't hurt in google or other equally good SE's. The description meta tag is however important, i would simply use the first 200 characters of the article/page to fill the description, that can easily be done through PHP depending of how you construct your site. The most important elements for keywords are the title and the h1-h6 headings, followed by em, b, and strong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoltZ Posted November 11, 2008 Share Posted November 11, 2008 In a google article I read that was posted on a different forum so I don't know the link, google actually said they use meta data as one of their factors. The biggest one is of course back links Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperBlue Posted November 12, 2008 Share Posted November 12, 2008 They do, but they however don't use keywords meta-data and other stuff like that. Also the description will not directly inpact your ranking, properly written descriptions may however increase the click rate of links in the SEs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoltZ Posted November 12, 2008 Share Posted November 12, 2008 Yea it only determines what keywords your page will show up in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperBlue Posted November 14, 2008 Share Posted November 14, 2008 Well for those really interested, the best place to seak out information about the SEs would often be the official websites, here are some for google regarding meta data. Answering more popular picks: meta tags and web search While the use of a description meta tag is optional and will have no effect on your rankings, a good description can result in a better snippet, which in turn can help to improve the quality and quantity of visitors from our search results. Other links: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35264#1 http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/09/improve-snippets-with-meta-description.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vardis Posted November 23, 2008 Share Posted November 23, 2008 I think it's been said before but the desciption tag will not help your serps - despite that fact it can be used to imporve the look of the search result. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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