Reader Question: We have a client that has begun using an SEO service that uses multiple . Your opinion please?
Answer:
On the Web, meta information (description, keywords, objecttype, etc.) is used to classify information about the content of a document to aid in searching. A meta tag, however, does not affect how a Web page is displayed on a browser. For online marketing, the most common uses for meta tags are the keyword, description, and robots exclusion attributes.
The objecttype that you are seeing might not have much to do with search engine marketing on Google, for example, but it might help with an internal site search engine. Many universities like to use this tag to classify type of Web pages. For example, if a university has a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) section, they might classify the document with the meta tag:
<meta name=”VW96.objecttype” content=”FAQs”>.
This meta-tag attribute has no effect on search engine visibility. It won’t harm a page if you use it (except possibly for keyword stuffing), but it won’t help, either.
However, since your client is using an SEO company that is trying to stuff extra keyword phrases into this tag, I would be concerned about keyword stuffing.
Meta tags and search engine optimization
Realistically speaking, the only meta-tag that the major search engines use is the meta-tag description. The meta-tag description has two uses: relevancy and display. Currently, Inktomi is the only search engine that uses meta-description content to determine relevancy. The content in the title tag, visible body text, and anchor text carries far more weight than the meta-tag description.
The meta-tag description is also used for search engine results pages (SERPs) as an entire description or for part of a snippet. So the meta-tag description is important for encouraging people to click on the link to your site. I highly recommend using your most important keyword phrases in the meta-tag description so your target audience can actually view them in SERPs. And I recommend placing a call to action (Buy, Purchase, Compare, Learn more, Read details, Subscribe, Register, Enroll, etc.) in the meta-tag description to also encourage a click-through.
The meta-keywords attribute is not nearly as important as it used to be. For detailed information about this topic, please read SEO Corner – Meta Keywords.
Two other meta-tag attributes that search engine marketers commonly use are the refresh and revisit attributes.
The meta-tag refresh attribute instructs a browser to load a different web page (or a page with updated information) after a specified period of time. If your web pages genuinely need this attribute, then it’s okay to use it. However, in terms of search engine visibility, the page that is the final destination will be the one used in the SERPs, not the page that has the refresh attribute.
Sometimes, pages with fast refreshes do sneak in to SERPs. Rest assured, these are exceptions and do not stay in the search engine indices for an extended period of time.
The other meta-tag attribute that SEOs like to use is the revisit attribute. Too many people mistakenly believe that they can instruct the search engine spiders to revisit their sites within a specified amount of time. Now honestly, do you think that a single line of HTML code is going to override the crawling process at every major search engine?
Unfortunately, many people still fall prey to this myth. Do not hire any search engine marketing firm that states that the meta-revisit attribute works on their sites.
Keyword repetition
Sometimes, due to time constraints, it’s just easier to use the same meta-tag descriptions and keywords on every page of your site. However, every page on your site is different and naturally focuses on different keyword phrases. Some pages might have similar content. But the word count, keyword prominence, keyword density, calls to action, etc. are going to be unique.
Ideally, I recommend writing unique meta-tag descriptions for every page. If you do not have the time to write unique meta-tag descriptions, just copy-and-paste the first two sentences in the visible HTML body text. Doing that is better than having no descriptions at all.
I would not repeat the title-tag content in the meta-tag description. In fact, search engine representatives at conferences specifically state not to use this strategy. It’s okay to write one or two sentences using some of the same keyword phrases, but make sure they are not identical.
In conclusion, if you find that a search engine marketing firm is stuffing keywords into a lot of different meta tags, then don’t hire that firm. Likewise, if you see too many identical sentences and phrases on a Web page, rewrite the page so that there is more variety in keyword use. The last thing you need is a spam penalty for keyword stuffing.
Shari Thurow is Marketing Director at Grantastic Designs, Inc., a full-service search engine marketing, web and graphic design firm. This article is excerpted from her book, Search Engine Visibility (http://www.searchenginesbook.com) published in January 2003 by New Riders Publishing Co. Shari can be reached at shari@grantasticdesigns.com.
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