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Re: meta tags

for

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: May 2, 2005 4:30AM

On Mon, 2 May 2005, webmaster wrote:


>> my firm is particularly concerned with meta tags like description, keywords
>> and the like which help search engine positioning.


They were regarded as potentially useful ten years ago. Due to continued
abuse ("keyword spamming" etc.), they are mostly ignored by search
engines. However, sometimes search engines still use then, and then you
may encounter some real difficulties. The point is that authors who try to
use those tags usually do it the wrong way, though sometimes they may do
it the very wrong way.

In particular, authors or their employers typically try to boost up the
pages by including marketese and hot words. This works against the needs
of users, and ultimately the interests of the sites as well - either
such marketing techniques are ignored by search engines, or they are used
by so many parties that there is no competitive advantage.


>> Do these tags impact accessibility in any way ?


They are not presented as page content, so basically the answer is "No".
However, they can confuse people by confusing searches and by presenting
the page improperly in search engine results.

-- Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/