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phanio
06-02-2009, 10:33 PM
I have been searching for the best way to use keywords. I understand that they are not given as much weight as they used to - but, I still think they should be used - just used properly.

To that note, I have read about and seen keywords separated by commas and spaces and some that are only separated by commas (no spaces). Which do you think is better and which do you use?

billbenson
06-03-2009, 12:33 AM
I assume you are talking about meta keywords. I'd use a coma and use key phrases, not just words. If you have an auto site and are working on a 68 Camaro page don't do something like: camaro, car, ford, fast, muscle,... Use something like 68 Camaro, top muscle car for 68, etc. Just use phrases that are applicable to that page and don't use very many. Just a couple including your main page key word.

If you think about it, spaces make no sense as you can't separate phrases that way. Don't use a laundry list of terms because G will just ignore it or consider it spammy.

At least thats what I would do...

vangogh
06-03-2009, 12:52 AM
I assume you mean meta keywords too. In which case you would use commas to separate words and phrases. However you've already put too much thought into it. It's been shown that 2 of the 4 major search engines completely ignore meta keywords and the other 2 put very little to no importance on them. If you spend more than a minute writing meta keywords you've wasted time.

If it means anything I never add them and the only recommended use is for misspellings and very uncommon words.

Here's a really good and thorough post on meta tags 101 (http://searchengineland.com/meta-keywords-tag-101-how-to-legally-hide-words-on-your-pages-for-search-engines-12099)

There probably isn't any harm in using them (other than letting your competition know what you hope to rank for), but don't expect to see any benefit from using them either.

vangogh
06-03-2009, 01:13 AM
Just for fun and my own curiosity I went out took a very unscientific poll on using meta keywords. I visited some sites by well known people in the industry and viewed their source code. I wasn't specifically counting, but it seemed about 65/35 in favor of not using them.

phanio
06-03-2009, 08:13 AM
Thanks for the info. I have been sending too much time on them. Vangogh - I went to your site and did not see any keywords.

Bill Benson - thanks - what about putting your title in your the meta keyword tag (as well as your title)?

billbenson
06-03-2009, 08:40 PM
I see no problem with doing that. The original intent of meta keywords was to tell the search engine what your site or page is about. I would stick your title, heading tags, and other page key phrases in there.

Say your site sells lawnmowers. Specialityawnmowers.com. I'd try to get the different lawnmowers on the page that I sell. Each one would have an h2 or 3 tag. I would put speciality lawnmowers, john deer, lawnboy, etc in there as long as they are mentioned on the page. If you have some sort of dynamic feature of the day on the page, I would put the feature of the day dynamically in the meta tags.

While most things you hear are that meta tags have little if any value, I think they have some value. I think is mostly a supporting role. Lets say you have something like specialitylawnmowers.com and G has trouble figuring out what the page is about. If you have speciality lawnmowers in the meta tag it may help G clarify what the page is about.

I also think a laundry list of keywords or phrases will hurt you. If G sees that, they are going to say "whats this page about"? I don't see it creating a ban situation, but I do see it having a negative impact.

Also, I definitely feel G looks at them for AdWords.

I'm not disagreeing with VG except that I'm a believer that all the little stuff when done properly and lumped together can make a significant difference. Since it literally is only a couple of minutes of your time (you should have already done the keyword research for the page), stick it in there.

Just my opinion.

vangogh
06-03-2009, 09:47 PM
The thing is if you use a word or phrase once on the page having the meta keyword in there likely doesn't do anything. If you read the post above you'll see Google and MSN completely ignored the tag. They didn't read anything in it.

If you want to use common misspelling I can see that. You wouldn't want to misspell words on your page, so go ahead and throw them in the meta tag. Otherwise I can't see them helping at all. I understand the idea of doing everything you can, but here the value is probably so little that the time you spend thinking about the meta keywords could be put to better use.

It's easy enough to test. Use meta keywords on a page that ranks somewhere. Add them and remove them a few times and see if you notice a difference. Try using some made up words in the meta keywords tag, but nowhere else and see if you rank for those words.

If you want to spend a minute or so adding them in, I think that's fine. It's when people start putting serious thought into it and do research for the best way to include the words that it becomes a waste of time.

billbenson
06-03-2009, 11:01 PM
An interesting test would be a page with only images and alt tags. That would take a lot of other variables out of the package.


If you read the post above you'll see Google and MSN completely ignored the tag. They didn't read anything in it.

They didn't read it or didn't do anything noticable with it? I have trouble believing G doesn't read it.

To the best of my knowledge it's not a diminished tag and I think G does favor pages that are properly done, although you can certainly find a lot of lousy pages that rank well.

I am also only referring to new pages that you are doing. The keywords are fresh in your mind so its one line of code that you can write in a minute. On an existing site I wouldn't bother unless they were spammy on a bunch of pages, in which case I'd just delete them.

So I think we are really saying the same thing, I just wouldn't go as far as to not use them. I suspect they may help you in some very oddball cases. What those are I have no idea and that would be very hard to test for.

vangogh
06-04-2009, 01:18 AM
Maybe 'read' wasn't the best choice of words on my part, but if you read the post you'll see that nonsensical words were used as meta keywords. Those words were not located on any other page on the web so they would be unique to the page using the meta keywords. If a search engine in any way used the meta keyword tag as part of a ranking algorithm that page should have ranked for the words.

On Google and MSN the page never ranked for those words showing those two search engines place no weight whatsoever on the meta keyword tag. You could put any words you want in the meta keywords and it's not going to help your page rank for those words on Google and MSN. The page did rank for the words on Yahoo and Ask which would show those two search engines did use the meta keywords tag in some way.

But even with Yahoo and Ask the likelihood is that at most a word in the meta keyword tag would count the same as that same word on the page. It's certainly not going to count any more than the same word on the page. So if you want to use it for misspellings of words it possibly makes sense for two of the four search engines. But otherwise it's really not going to help you rank at all.

Again I see no problem in adding meta keywords. The only downside I can see is if the search engines penalize you for stuffing the tag and maybe the idea that you could be helping a competitor research keywords. I doubt either is a big deal. But if you spend more than a minute writing keywords for your meta tag or you worry about things like using commas or spaces you're over thinking it and wasting your time chasing something that has no value in two of the major search engines and minimal value in the other two.

avanidesigns
01-14-2011, 04:28 PM
Stick with the tried and true an old fellar once said... when in doubt use commas... Better yet, always use them unless an app your using says otherwise. Commas is the universal separator...

CloptonCapital
04-07-2011, 02:39 AM
I'm convinced meta is all but useless, I just use it so I can measure the relevance with a meta tag analyzer