[thelist] Are Keywords Dead?

[Tom Dell'Aringa]

--- J Nicholas Tolson <jtnt at mindspring.com> wrote:
> Yes, it has fallen by the wayside. A victim of search engine spamming via
> the tag and other reasons I'm not smart enough to know about, I'm sure.

> According to the article below, only Inktomi still uses the meta tag in
> their algorithm. And this may no longer be the case, since the article was
> written in Dec 2003.
> 
> http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Search-Engine-Optimization/Search-Engine-Myths-De
> bunked

While what Nicholas says is true as to the spamming issue - I don't buy that keywords have no
effect. When all SEO firms still spend plenty of time on them - that's a good indicator they mean
something. 

Now, certainly they do NOT have the efect that in-page content has. But to say they have no effect
is - again - speculation. Even by some supposed SEO chat web site. They don't have any more
"inside" information than you or I have. Google doesn't tell people how they work their magic -
that proprietary information to say the least.

What to do?

- Follow Google's (or whatever SE you are targeting) guidelines to the letter. Do not follow chat
room gossip about what is and what isn't used.
- Do vigorous testing. Track your results among the search terms/phrases you want to win with.
- Don't use shady 'tricks' to trick SEs into giving you higher rankings, as you will eventually be
banned.

Furthermore, I don't know much about the guy who wrote that article, but it's kind of ridiculous.
He tells you they aren't used and don't bother - then at the end he says:

"Now that we’ve established that meta tags aren’t important for ranking, I’ll recommend that
you include them anyway.  They aren’t very important, but they sure can’t hurt, and they’re
not much work to include."

Gee, thanks. I'm also a little wary of web sites where 50% (or more) of the content on each page
is advertising. They tend to throw up content for the sake of content, not because its quality.

I think an honest summation of their use can be found here:

http://www.seologic.com/faq/meta-keywords.php

Maybe their importance has been de-emphasized, but that doesn't mean you can omit them.

HTH

Tom


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