Page 2 - Optimal number of meta keywords

Says who? (Except for you)

OK, so now you're going from meta keywords being "important to the matching and display on search engine results" to stuff that "can't hurt."

After you're done contradicting yourself... you admit they don't make much of a difference?

<title>You don't need to have lots of green blobs on your profile to give good advice, but you've got to give good advice to have at least one of them.</title>

First of all it isn't a "title tag" unless you are implying this: <meta name="Title" Content="Something written here." />

Second - it's an absolute fact that Metas don't help with ranks... so you have only the Title Element left to your claim - and a single link pointing to the domain suggests that it wasn't just the title element that got the page ranked... and further...

"IF" you have zero links... a page/domain won't be indexed.

So please point out those sites.

A best practice implies doing something that does something positive... doing something that doesn't do anything [e.g. doesn't hurt] is never a best practice.

You got negative rep from me because your understanding of SEO & html code lingo is very poor and your advice is very amateurism.

If you want "good rep" all you got to do is learn [first] and then help others here with their understanding.

Well a fairly brief search revealed this in the thread immediately below this one :

http://knol.google.com/k/gary-beal/.../14ymgk78ul2/2# (Point 5)

by our own GaryTheScubaGuy.

"5. Write your meta descriptions smartly
Meta descriptions are part of the off-page code you find when you go to a page and look at your source code - usually near the top you'll see 'META NAME="Description" CONTENT='. This is another element the search engines look at to determine the theme of the site. More importantly they almost all use it to describe the page in your search results. So if you are searching for 'blue widget', the results you will get have that keyword in bold. This will make it stand out more and increase conversions. It will also bold the partial word (I.e. buy blue widgets in Akron) in the title and the URL as well."

Wow. So, all this while, you never knew the difference between the meta description tag, and the meta keywords tag?

They're both VERY different. I'd never ignore the meta description, not because it's a place to stuff keywords in, but because I have a chance in the search engines of having that content displayed along with my listing. So, if I can put well-written copy in there, I have a better chance of getting a clickthrough.

Comprende?

...and I've debunked that claim 40 times over... as with everyone the spouts about improved CTR not one has the data to support their claim... their claim is based on... Danny Sullivan talking about someone elses post, who's written something off of someones research, who did a test about CTR improvements based on typewriter mechanics ads done in Indiana.

Claiming something so you can write a top tips article is totally different than actually doing the research.

Show me your data sets?

And I would disagree with both the desc and keywords....


The "snippet" is just as likely to be pulled from the text on your page than from the meta description. So you should spend your time writing good text which has your keyword phrase within it rather than spend time writing meta descriptions which add no weight to your relevancy and which users cant see except in the case of a snippet.

No need to spend time on either IMO.

I just saw that Fathom posted the same thing but more eloquently as usual

Be as smug and supercilious as you like, people have been flying at me shouting that meta data is of no value whatsoever.

I am not ar$ed getting into an argument with a load of internet tough guys but essentially there was a counter-point in the thread just below this one made by one of the moderators.

As I said : It's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice

Hit enter by accident before finishing the sentence. I was going to say:

"While I did talk about improved CTR, I know (like I said in the earlier post) there's only a chance of the meta description being pulled for the listing. So yes, I wouldn't spend a lot of time on it. But personally, I really like putting a sentence or two in there WHILE I'm designing the page. If I have everything set up, I don't think going back just to add meta descriptions is worth the trouble."

EDIT:

The thread list keeps changing, so if you could point out which thread you're talking about, I'd appreciate it.

I get alot of messages about my forum etiquette, how rude I am, how arrogant, how insulting...

A different spin on the quoted line... "if" someone posts a point and it's never challenged and 1000 newbies "do it" and spending countless hours, 1000s of people hours to get no results...

Was the original poster really being nice?

Were all the experienced members that simply ignored the thread - really being nice?

It's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice... but IMHO any member that spouts total unsubstantiated claims as SEO facts 'just because they can' -- is where the problem is...

They just aren't being nice... no matter how much they pretend they are.

I think otherwise...even if it's just a url google seems to follow them, or they are using toolbar data to find sites, I'm not sure which it is but I've experienced it (G finding a page that was not linked to as far as I know)