[thelist] Searching dynamic sites

[.jeff]

josh,

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> From: Joshua Olson
>
> > actually, that's completely false.  meta tags are now
> > ignored by most of the search engines due to spamming.
>
> source, please.
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<comment type="cheeky">ask anybody that's researched what search engines
look for when indexing and they'll say the same thing.</comment>

i do recall reading lots of articles over the past year that talked about
search engine strategies and what to avoid.  in that reading, i remember
reading about how search engines were abandoning the indexing/reading of
meta tags because far more were being used to spam the engines than those
that were not.

so, with that i've done alittle more research of my own and came up with the
following information:

http://www.searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/features.html

lots of search engines don't even look at meta tags -- engines like google,
northern light, excite, fast, inktomi.  then there's the issue of whether or
not meta tags boost your ranking.  not in alot of search engines --
altavista, exite, fast, google, northernlight.

so, it may indeed be used and even boost your ranking in other search
engines, but what's the point really if those other search engines don't
even have a tiny percentage of the search engine market share?  i guess the
point is that it's good practice to have them there.  having them there
means you're prepared for the day when they may become important again.
having them there doesn't harm you.  so, you might as well just get in the
habit of doing it.  however, thinking that doing it is going to have an
improvement for the most used search engine, google, is a mistake.

thanks,

.jeff

http://evolt.org/
jeff at members.evolt.org
http://members.evolt.org/jeff/