Site optimization

[SkGold]

Originally Posted by Chad

You can't fairly say "all search engines" and only cite a single engine (Yahoo).

For me Google, Yahoo and MSN are all search engines and you absolutely wrong about them.
All of them still using meta tags. Here is the proof :
One of my clients website listed on position #1 in Google and MSN for keyphrase - Calgary Music Lessons.
Both search engines using description of this site from meta name="description".
For Google take a look here - Calgary Music Lessons
For MSN take a look here - Calgary Music Lessons
Can’t show you Yahoo, as at this moment I have problem with this search engine. But it was the same 2 month ago.

Specially meta tags important for flash sites, dynamically generated pages and all other sites that have no or a little content.

[Chad]

Well holy crap! You are absolutely right and I stand corrected. I was under the impression that since META could be so easily spammed it wasn't used. HOWEVER I think that the meta desc on your site is likely VERY static so it's more trusted that descriptions that change from day to day or visit to visit. There's a lot more to this than I originally thought.

I'm not afraid to admit I'm wrong and in this case I think I have been misinformed and I will keep this in mind in the future. Thanks for citing some evidence!

[SkGold]

Originally Posted by Chad

I was under the impression that since META could be so easily spammed it wasn't used.

Just think for a second. Could content of your site be easily spammed?
So search engines must not use it? Make sense isn�t it?
Don�t trust everything that you can hear on the net. Test it yourself.

As I said before, concentrate on people not on search engines. If people will like your site, believe me you will be on the top of the search engines.

More and more search engines start looking for social aspect of the site, like how many unique visitors you have, where they come from, what pages they look, how long they stay on your site, do they add your site to their favorites and so on..

Do you think Google provide Google Analytics for free because they so nice?
No, because they will use the data to make their engine better and very soon they will use this data for sites ranking.
May be they already doing this, who knows?

[Maffo]

HOWEVER I think that the meta desc on your site is likely VERY static so it's more trusted that descriptions that change from day to day or visit to visit.

This doesnt matter, for example, I have over 150 categories on one site, to the search engine, each page is different when in actual fact its all category.php.

My news mod is one page but every story appears on google as a seperate page.

Be careful what you read on the net, people are desperate to get the top and the "experts" know this. They want your money and so do the search engines. The prices charged are astronomical by some companies.

[Chad]

Well you guys have given me plenty to chew on. It's possible the engines are digging into this more and more and I admit the only information I could find on meta tag uselessness was a little dated. Hmm well at least I was a gentleman about it right? (say yes, this way I can save a little face!) hehe

[Maffo]

Ok, I will let you off this time. I just hope Sk is as forgiving as I

[SkGold]

Yes, you are Chad.
And of course I do Maffo, of course I do.