meta description tag... how long?

I compete with a smart person who continually ranks in the top 3 positions on google for very competitive terms. She doesn't have signficant IBLs, don't cloak and doesn't use tags on most of her web pages.

On her index page... there is limited copy andit directly relates to s all the tags..

The most obvious thing I see she does:

• has a very long meta description tag (over 300 words), which is very similar to the body cop on the page.
• long meta keywhords which mimi the KW's in the desciption tag
• long title tag - also continaing the same KW's in description, keywords and and body copy.

What's the technique? Seems to defy current recommendations for succinct tags?

Thanks.

alan

Sorry for the short post. But if you do find out, I'd like to know.

I've often wondered how people can rank highly whilst apparently defying all the recommendations.

how old is her site?
her backlinks are few, but are they powerful? have you run it through www.webmasterbrain.com/prog
how many pages are indexed for her site?
when you say cometitive, what are we talking? what kind of numbers do you get in digitalpoint's keyword tool? www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

-Greg

300 word description in a meta is way too long. When I was using addweb pro, the recommended 12 - 15 words, about 18 words in the keywords meta. The reason is that there is keyword weight and density issues in meta tags too. With 300 words, the weight/density goes down near zero.

zoidsoft

I don't believe that google even uses meta tags in judging a pages importance. Not all engines use meta tags.

zoidsoft

Google doesn't use the description tag to rank sites. Just having the same keywords in the title as the copy can do alot for rank. Check the backlinks and related:www.competing-website.com search in Google.