Worth using meta tags on every page?

[Wilmot]

Hi, I am in the process of adding meta tags to my web site and was just wondering if I should add tags to every page of the site or just the index page.

I was thinking I should use them for the articles on my site so search engines can index them correctly.

What are your opinions of meta tagging every page?

[BC]

It is highly recommended that you add meta tags to each page. Search engine bots will not necessarily enter through your front index.html/default page, so it is suggested that you put meta tags on the others - but make sure you tailor the meta tags on each page so that they are particularly relevant to the content on that page to ensure a higher chance.

[Wilmot]

Hi, thanks for the reply..
That is basically what I had thought.. One other thing I thought of, is placing the second, third etc. pages of articles in the robots.txt file to stop robots indexing them. After all, you most likely only want people coming in to the first page of the article.

However.. In a lot of the site point articles (well on promotionbase.com anyway) I notice they just have

<meta name=description content="">
<meta name=keywords content="">

But then in others, they use a list of key words in both
the description and keywords tags..

My question is.. Regarding the ones they have left empty, is there some special reason for this, or did they just forget/run out of time/not worry?

Now regarding the ones they have included. Is there any special reason they put the exact same thing (list of key words) in the description and the keywords sections?

Thanks again.

[BC]

With the empty meta tags, I suspect it might just be 'not needed'.... But don't quote me on that You'd be better off asking the original author.

There is usually a good reason that nearly exactly the same words are used in the keywords/description - I recall reading a recent article where search engines tend to give you a higher ranking if certain 'aspects' of the site are re-inforced - and one way to do that is to use the same keywords in the description field and vice versa. Same thing if you use the words in the meta tags and 'litter them' throughout your article.

[Michel V]

Basical search engines which search for re-inforced key words can be fooled by just these lines:

<div display="none">
list of keywords,
repeated some dozen times,
but not too many times,
or else the file's size would get too heavy.
but i'm not sure weither it works or not
on less than 4.0 browsers.
</div>


Also, if you want my opinion, i'd say place your meta-tags everywhere. In the beginning of the HTML files, in the JPGs' header bytes, in the MP3s' ID3 tags...
Nah, just kidding on this one. Keep them just on head of you html stuff and that's all.

[Hierophant]

Originally posted by Shin Ma
Basical search engines which search for re-inforced key words can be fooled by just these lines:

<div display="none">
list of keywords,
repeated some dozen times,
but not too many times,
or else the file's size would get too heavy.
but i'm not sure weither it works or not
on less than 4.0 browsers.
</div>


Also, if you want my opinion, i'd say place your meta-tags everywhere. In the beginning of the HTML files, in the JPGs' header bytes, in the MP3s' ID3 tags...
Nah, just kidding on this one. Keep them just on head of you html stuff and that's all.

Stuff like this will get you, your site and your domain name blacklisted from various search engines, it is unethical and improper behavior. These are the sort of tactics that warez, porno and spam sites use. These are also the sort of tactics that will eventually bring government regulation into the process of classifying websites.

[Sparkie]

What about doorway pages? Will those get you blocked from the search engines?

[Hierophant]

Originally posted by Sparkie
What about doorway pages? Will those get you blocked from the search engines?

Each and every search engine has its own rules of engagement. The best way to keep from getting yourself blacklisted because of doorway pages is to put some actual content on them but have all that content in your regular site. This way they are not seen as an optimized list of keywords but as true doorways to a site.

[Michel V]

W. Luke, actually, i'm not using this method... not registered to any search engines too.
I hope you didn't think i was promoting this. It was just a little sarcasm.

[MrCheap]

I have found that also using title tag in static text links works very well. Works on the same principal as a alt for img tags.

[patti]

While on the subject of meta tags and search engines. Is it wrong to use comment tags in your page to sneak in a few extra relevant words?

What I mean is for example, you have several tables on a page and you comment them to keep track of them. In the comment tag you would put "Table for MySite ProductName" instead of just "table 1" or "navigation table".

Something harmless not a list of keywords throughout the page.

Thanks
Patti