Well, in my last post I wrote all about how a Yahoo! search representative publicly stated that Yahoo! does not recognize the keywords attribute of the meta tag. After Google had made a similar announcement just weeks before, it was looking like we could just about close the book on meta keywords.
But Search Engine Land says not so fast. Danny Sullivan published the results of a simple experiment this afternoon, and ended up making Yahoo! look foolish. His experiment was fantastically simple: he created a nonsense string of characters that returned no search results in Yahoo!. He then took that character string and put it in the meta keywords tag on the Search Engine Land homepage. A couple days later, the SEL homepage was appearing in the Yahoo! search results for his chosen character string. Conclusion: Yahoo! ranked that page based on the contents of the meta keywords tag.
Here’s the least you need to know:
- Danny Sullivan proved that Yahoo! is ranking pages based on the meta keywords tag they claimed to ignore.
- This story has an important moral: Take everything you hear from search engine representatives with a grain of salt. I’m not looking to demonize these folks, I simply want to remind readers that at the end of the day search engine reps want what’s best for their search engine, not necessarily your site.
Earlier this week, Yahoo!’s Senior Director of Search Cris Pierry announced at SMX East, a search marketing conference in New York, that Yahoo! does not value the keywords attribute of the meta tag in its search algorithm. Not even a little bit. This announcement comes just two weeks after Google made a similar announcement in their blog.
Spokespeople for both engines have long hinted that meta keywords do not play a large role in formulating their search results. This was a gradual response to the widespread issue of spam in the keywords attribute, and the ability of many to utilize meta keywords to gain undeserved or just plain incorrect rankings.
I wrote a more detailed analysis of this issue in the CommonPlaces blog, but here’s the least you need to know:
- Yahoo doesn’t recognize the meta keywords tag. They won’t penalize you for having one—they’ll simply ignore it. Ditto for Google.
- Bing, on the other hand, does recognize the tag. However, they admit that they place a low value on it.
- Final recommendation: If you already have meta keywords in place, leave them. If you’re building a new site, include meta keywords if it can be done with little effort. Don’t go out of your way to include a tag that will either be ignored or minimally valued
October 6, 2009 | Written by
Harry | under
SEO
There. I said it. If you have a basic knowledge of search engine optimization and how search engines like Google work, 90% of SEO – or at least white hat SEO – is common sense. Here’s the least you need to know:
- Link authority is a big part of SEO…so maximize the quantity and quality of your incoming links.
- Search engines rely on spiders to crawl your site…so organize your site well and ensure it is easily navigable.
- Search engines attach value to fresh content…so update your site regularly.
- Search engines exist to find the content that best suits the search query…so create content that matches what your customers are searching for.
Many make SEO seem like a complicated process that’s equal parts art, science, and magic. But as I said above, if you understand these very basic tenets, good SEO will follow logically. Memorize these points, or keep them as a reference. The next time you have an SEO question, refer back to them. More often than not, they will contain your answer.
Welcome to Creative Digressions! My name is Harry Lund and I am social media maven hailing from New Hampshire. My goal for Creative Digressions is for it to become a useful, informative, and/or thought provoking blog on all topics relating to social media, online marketing, and the Internet in general.
