This article is provided by Yesup SEO, an established SEO services.
Meta Description Tags are bits of HTML code placed in the “Head” section of a website page, usually before the Meta keywords tag but after the Title tag. These tags do not influence a page’s search engine rankings but they are worth doing since words may ultimately appear in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), given how unpreditable SERPs can be. Conducting tests on Google and Yahoo for keywords will confirm the validity of doing these tags properly.
Meta description tags are bits of HTML code that are placed in the “Head” section of a site page, usually before the Meta keywords tag but after the Title tag. They were long assumed to influence a page’s search engine rankings in two ways – by helping the page rank highly for words contained within the tag, and by providing a description in the search engine results pages (SERPs). The reality, however, is that the information placed in both Meta keyword and description tags is not accorded any importance or “weight” in Google’s ranking algorithms and very little in Yahoo’s. Including keyword phrases, then, really does little or nothing to improve your site’s position in the SERPs for words relevant to your online business.
SEO people are now debating whether or not it is worth all the effort needed to properly include Meta keywords and description tags. The reality, however, is that you cannot really predict what the engines will show in the SERPs, because results will also vary with the words that the searcher types into the engine. It might be prudent, then, to adjust your Meta tags to include certain keywords and/or phrases that you think might be used in searches, particularly if those words do not appear anywhere on the page other than in the Title tag.
Running test searches on Google and Yahoo for relevant keywords in your description tag confirm that an adequate tag is at least worth the effort with the latter engine, since those words may appear in the SERPS. Even running test searches on the two engines for irrelevant keywords in your tag, unrelated to your site and appearing nowhere else on the page, may generate something. Test pages for irrelevant words may be only partially displayed by these engines, or part of the description tag may only be shown, but at least they are engine results.
Tests on other search engines seem to also confirm the validity of including proper Meta description tags. MSN search seems to function much like Yahoo, but like Google offers only incomplete and/or partial results. Teoma actually finds the page where the words are located but does not necessarily show them.
You should not fret too much over Meta description tags, but it is probable worth the little effort and time needed to do these one and two sentence blurbs well. Description tags with relevant keywords complement strong keyword phrases already included on your Web pages, and will at least generate incomplete and/or partial engine results. When you also consider the way engines are always changing their search parameters, it also helps to cover all your bases.
If you have any questions about this article, or wish to offer suggestions, please contact us at Yesup SEO, an established SEO services.