My oppinion is that Meta tags are still important for Google or for Yahoo.

Take a look bellow:

Keyword Importance

Most techniques to improve your search engine rankings have one thing in common -- keywords. Choosing appropriate keywords is extremely important. Think about it: Keywords are what lead search engine users to your site.

How to choose your keywords

Choosing the right keywords is the first step to better search engine positioning. Analyze your business carefully and think of all the words that relate to your company or product.

Let's say you sell puppy food. What words would you search for when looking for the same product? Ask your colleagues and friends to think about the same question. This is perhaps the most important stage in your war for a spot in search engines' top 20.

As you think about keywords, consider the following:

* Who needs your service?
Think about who will use your services, then target them with keywords. For example, people whose dogs are about to have puppies will need puppy food, so you can add phrases like "dog pregnancy" and "puppy health" to your list.

* Include variations of your keywords
People will search for your site using all sorts of keywords. Making your site easy to find means including misspelled, capitalized and plural keywords. Always include the longer forms of keywords too. For example, use "domestication" as well as "domestic."

* Avoid wrong keywords
Do not use "stop words" -- particles like "and" and "the" and common words like "Internet." Remember, the more specific your keywords are, the better the chance that people who find your site through search engines will actually benefit from its content.

What are the best places for keywords?

* HTML Title
* Text of the page
* Meta description
* Meta keywords
* ALT tags
* Comment tags
* URL name

Alphabetical priority and its influence

Whether a file name starts with A or Z can have a surprising effect on a site's search engine rankings. Some small search engines still use alphabetical priority as a ranking factor. Directories such as Yahoo! and Open Directory Project list sites in alphabetical order. It's important to consider the effect of the alphabetical hierarchy as you choose keywords.

Avoid spam

Be careful choosing keywords. If all your keywords don't relate to your site's content you risk being penalized for spam. Don't include "MP3" and "Pokemon" in your keyword list if you sell puppy food. Sure, it will drive up traffic temporarily, but it can also get your site rejected from important search engines.

This article is from: google-dance-tool.com/google_keywords.html

Thats kew and thats what i was on about how google doesn't use the meta tags to make its list but it still has a certain relevance becuase it will pick out the text/ keywords

<meta> tags are still important. There are other engines aside from google such as yahoo that still use meta tags. <title> <description> <keywords> at the very least.

mcfox,
I read and interesting article about listing in Yahoo and MSN (http://forums.ukwebmasterworld.com/s...=5285#post5285) i sort of share the authors opinion that high listing in Yahoo and MSN are almost worthless, what do you think? Do you get good traffic from Yahoo?

Originally Posted by temi

... i sort of share the authors opinion that high listing in Yahoo and MSN are almost worthless, what do you think? Do you get good traffic from Yahoo?

Do I get floods of traffic from msn and Yahoo? No. Do I get traffic from msn and yahoo? Yes. Much more so Yahoo at the moment than MSN.

Ok, so google is the current market leader among search engines and it has around 56% (I think) of the market, with Yahoo sitting about 26% and MSN lagging behind at approx. 11%, so if you can, try to get a decent listing in G since it will send you floods of traffic -- but, remember that Google changed their algorithm during the 'Florida update' of Nov 2004, and as a result have lost relevancy in their returned search results. This is beginning to ripple around forums and the internet and people are beginning to complain about crap search results.

Yahoo has been a steady player since the internet kicked off big time and will be for the foreseeable future - 26% is a major slice of cake and if you can get to the top of Yahoo, you will most definitely see a steady stream of traffic.

MSN is less of a player at the moment but don't forget who is behind MSN. Microsoft have a considerable amount of muscle to use to their advantage and they don't usually come out second best in a fight. Their soon to be launched, "Longhorn" operating system will find a way of steering people towards MSN search, of that you can count on.

I think discounting Yahoo and MSN as useless is a grave error of judgement if you want to still be in the game in a few years time.

I agree. SEO is way too easy for Yahoo/MSN, especially for 3-4 string keyword phrases. Only a fool would pass on the opportunity to receive free traffic, with relatively little effort.

Remember, Yahoo/MSN'ers (And AOL'ers even though they're powered by GODoogle) are buyers, while Googloids are searchers. I want buyers.

Originally Posted by Paul_KY

Remember, Yahoo/MSN'ers (And AOL'ers even though they're powered by GODoogle) are buyers, while Googloids are searchers. I want buyers.

Couldn't agree more! Traffic from Yahoo tends to convert into sales better than Google traffic and is not to be sniffed at, imho.

Originally Posted by martian2k4

These days Google and i think Yahoo don't use meta tags any more but are there any other search engines tht don't use them? And is it still good to put them in seen as google will go through your code and pick out all the words?

Meta Tags are still important, because Meta tags describe the content on each page of your website so that when a person types their search into a search engine, the search engine looks for websites with the same Meta tags as they have asked for.

YES! Meta tags are still important. The description meta tag is highly important, its what people read in the listings when deciding whether to click on your site or not! You've gotta make your meta description clear, attractive and informative.

Keyword meta tags should be filled because you dont loose anything by not!

And what about these...

<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, FOLLOW">
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX, NOFOLLOW">
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW">

???