The meta description tag is back!!. For all those who are following Search Engine Optimization rules as laid down by Google and have taken to heart that the meta tags don’t matter any more, eat this! Meta Tags have always served the purpose of telling us what the HTML page is all about. This is now more important than ever before because Facebook and other sites are pulling the description of the link/story from the meta tags on the page. I’m sure FB experimented with other stuff before settling on the description tag.
See below two examples of the use of meta description tags and the resultant display on FB,
Bad Meta Description tag
If you are considering popularizing your website through social media, you should get the basics right. Stuffing your description tag with ‘prize’ keywords is definitely in the ‘not getting it right’ section. As always remember, your website and everything on it is for the user and the Search Engines should always come second.
Good Meta description tag
This tag explains gives an overview of the article, the published date and a thumbnail for good effect. There is not much effort involved either. just pull the first few lines of the article and add to the description tag. Simple cron job!
This is the last post for 2009. Here’s wishing everyone a great year ahead!!
Meta tags never went away. The description tag has always been important as long as there have been search engines and anyone who told you otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Search engines, including Google will display your description in their search result especially if your query happens to be present in the description.
The Meta keywords tag on the other hand is a piece of crap that needs to be taken behind the barn and put out of it’s misery. Unfortunately, most SEO operators will still advise you to put one of these in a page despite no large search engine paying attention to it.