Search Engine Optimization and META Tags

Many people believe that stuffing html head and meta tags (title, description, and keywords) will make their site "search engine optimized". Is this true? To answer this question, it is first necessary to engage in a short history lesson concerning search engines and search rankings.

Brief History of Search Engine Ranking Schemes

Back in the '90's, when the Internet first began to expand into the public sector on a large scale, search engine technology was primitive and was based primarily on one fundamental assumption - that human beings would be honest about the content of their websites. As such, the head tags mentioned above were of great importance in determining the relevancy of a website. Search engines would spider a page and read the head tags, which, in theory, would provide an accurate picture of the content of the website through the use of keywords and keyphrases relevant to the site's content.

However, people soon realized that by stuffing these tags with popular yet irrelevant keyphrases (such as pornographic words or other popular words like mp3, etcetera) would attract more raw traffic to their websites, even though the website in question was in no way related to those topics. The theory was that given enough raw traffic, search engine rankings and sales would increase.

At this same time, the competition among search engines was fierce (as it continues to be), and search engine companies such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and the like began to realize that their very survival depended upon delivering accurate results so that people could find exactly what it is they were looking for. In other words, search engines which would deliver inaccurate results would eventually go out of business as consumers realized that they could not find what that for which they were searching.

Once again, the American way of free enterprise and competition worked, resulting in more accurate results delivered by search engine companies. But how?

The Abuse of Head Tags and Keywords Has Changed the Way Search Engines Rank Sites

Now, any respectable search engine, and all of the major search engines, virtually ignore the head tags and keywords written into the html code of a website. In order to deliver the most relevant results, search engines realized that dependency on head tags had to go.

For a website to be properly built with an eye towards search engine optimization, it must be built in such a way as to ensure that the content of the website (i.e. the actual text written on the website) matches the keywords and keyphrases included in the meta tags, and that they do so in such a way as to make sense. The number of times that keywords or keyphrases are used in a website is very important and is known as keyphrase density.

If keyphrase density is too low, then the site will achieve a lower ranking. On the other hand, if it is too high, it will be penalized as well. This is known as keyphrase stuffing, and example of this would be repeating the same keyword or keyphrase over and over on the site without any logical or sensical scheme to it.

Summary

In summation, if you are relying on your head tags for search engine placement, you are making a costly mistake and your site will suffer for it. To have a website properly optimized for maximum search engine traffic, many factors beyond those described herein must be taken into account. The need for a qualified search engine optimization expert cannot be overemphasized in today's competitive marketplace.

For more information on search engine optimization, you may visit this website: http://www.arteworks.biz/seo.htm.