Keyword Meta Test Conclusions

Meta Keyword Test Conclusions

July 10th, 2007

The results are in.

I only monitored the top three search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN) during the test. Combined they are about 84% of search engine traffic worldwide. Here is a list of the actual stats from April 2007.

First the title attribute (title=”")

None of the top three engines recognize the title attribute. Page A had a link to page B. The link on page A to page B utilized the title attribute and page B had the title attribute attached to an image. Neither page was displayed on any of the three engines during a search for the word.

Use the title attribute to enhance your visitors stay - it will do nothing to rank you in SERPs.

Meta Keyword Tag

I think if you were to tabulate all the discussions about the meta keyword tag on all the forums in the world the total number of threads would probably outrank that of Britney Spears! From my prospective after testing both are useless topics.

Neither Google nor MSN produced a result for either of the keywords added to the meta. It makes sense to me because lets face it, the meta tag is essentually hidden content from the view of the visitor - why should it be involved in the ranking of content?

As I discussed in my first post about the test, Google’s Media bot (AdSense) did recognize the keyword meta and on one occasion did list an ad pertaining to the keyword - the content of the page had nothing to do with the word. After the occasion I mention it seemed the bot got smarter and I didn’t see another occurence of the ad.

Yahoo’s results were interesting. Yahoo does in fact utilize the keyword meta. Results for all the pages were produced for the various words. It is clear Yahoo refers to the meta content as on page content. The amount of credence it gives those words is unknown. Currently, the only page I have left the meta keyword “mrnavycs” ranks number two for the word against feeds and forum entries about the test. The only links (currently) to the site with the word are from a forum signature with the anchor “fish stories”. Heh, thinking about it that’s almost funny.

So, add the meta? I personally do not. (Matter of fact, not that my conclusion is this is the cause, I removed all signs of the keyword meta a few months back from this site - my Yahoo traffic increased. Could be other design changes that effected this…just pointing it out.) I do believe the only reason to use the meta would be for sites that cater to various dialects - example, English and American versions of a word. Jewelry and Jewellery, same word and neither is a misspelling. You would write your site for one version of the word and put the other version in the meta. I do think Yahoo will eventually follow the other search engines lead, it only makes sense, again, why give credence to hidden content?