Google does use sites meta tags

[Ryan Hemelaar]

I've heard a lot of people say lately that Google doesn't use meta tags, it just ignores them.

Well a quick search in Google for W3Schools came up with a site w3schools.org. That site had a domain place holder there, with no relevant text at all, but on Google it had under the site name, this:
"The first internet search engine for domain offers, which are for sale. We have over 1.500.000 domains in our database. If you have domains/URLs to offer, ..."

I went back and checked the page again but I couldn't find it. So I check out the source, and sure enough, that exact sentence is there under a meta description.

[Antonbomb22]

google recognizes metatags but gives them little weight in search relevance

[stymiee]

From the SEO FAQ:

...blah...blah...Meta Tags...blah...blah...

The large majority of search engines do not use Meta Tags as part of their ranking algorithym. The most notable exception is Yahoo which does use them (at least the meta keyword) but it's weight in their algorithym is extremely low and essentially has no influence on a high ranking (it may be useful to jump up you from the 1,000th position or so). Some will claim Google uses Meta tags in its algorithym. This is entirely untrue. Google, however, will use a meta description tag if it is unable to discern a description for a webpage on its own (if the page has no text and no description in the open directory [dmoz] the it is likely Google will use the meta description tag in its SERPs). Please note that it is only using this description in its SERPs, not its algorithym.

Should you use Meta Tags in your site? Yes. They do have some affect in some search engines and even though that effect is almost zero it is still more then zero so is worth the time.

How much time should I spend on my Meta Tags? Ten minutes. Write a nice concise description of your page and throw in a sampling of keywords (which you should have them handy if you've optimized your pages properly). You should spend no more time then this on them. Use your time to promote your site and get quality inbound links.

How many keywords should I use? As many as you want. If you start to think you may have too many, you probably do. This means you need to divide your page into subpages with each one taking its own topic.

[rashidr]

You people wants to say there is some importance for meta keywords in google search results.

[fatnewt]

To be clear, meta tags are not used for ranking.

[MARK Online]

well yes meta tags are not so important.

so it is good to give time on content not on generating perfect meta tags...

[WealthStream]

Google doesn't use the meta keyword tag, but it seems to read meta description tags in the same way as any other content within the page.

[fatnewt]

Google doesn't use the meta keyword tag, but it seems to read meta description tags in the same way as any other content within the page.

Not really. It'll use the description on results pages, but it won't consider it in the ranking algorithm. It will, however, consider content.

[WealthStream]

I don't know how much weight they give your description tag, but if you type a phrase from a website's description into Google, the site will come up (even if those exact words don't appear in the content). That's what I meant.

[rashidr]

I have concluded the whole summary "It is better to use meta tags. Google doesn't gives so much importance to meta tags but you will get some minor points on search results. May be this minor advantage can be big bonus for you.

[fatnewt]

May be this minor advantage can be big bonus for you.

eh?

There have been tests that show that the consideration Google gives to meta tags isn't small -- it's zero. It's not that Google doesn't put much weight, it's that they ignore them for ranking completely.

I don't know how much weight they give your description tag, but if you type a phrase from a website's description into Google, the site will come up (even if those exact words don't appear in the content). That's what I meant.

Do you have an example of this? I'm curious.

[TimNiceButDim]

I don't know how much weight they give your description tag, but if you type a phrase from a website's description into Google, the site will come up (even if those exact words don't appear in the content). That's what I meant.

That would not surprise me, since what google doesnt do one day, doesnt mean it wont do it in the future.

The algo could change at any time, as a result all websites from use meta tags atleast on their main pages.

[michelangelo]

That would not surprise me, since what google doesnt do one day, doesnt mean it wont do it in the future.

The algo could change at any time, as a result all websites from use meta tags atleast on their main pages.

Google is always striving to *increase* relevancy. They realized when they started that meta tags were a quick way to 'cheat' search engines into thinking a page was about something it wasnt'. So they have never used meta tags for relevancy, and never will. You don't get as rich as Google by being stupid

[WealthStream]

Do you have an example of this? I'm curious.

I just checked around a bit, and found that Google doesn't always treat the description tag as content. It did on one of my sites, but it might have been because my meta description was also being used as anchor text for a few of my incoming links, and we all know how much of a difference that can make.

[webbj]

I dont know alot about google, but I know that msn search DOES rely on meta data for site ranking.

I accidentally copied the meta keywords from one page on my site into another page, with no relavance at all the content.
In under a week msn ranked the page at number one for a two word search. It only ranked the page on the meta keywords as the page content had nothing at all related to the search.

[Expressweb]

I have never seen google using my description for on its result page , rather I see some of the text from my content . Google is no more a meta search engine Now