The Keyword Meta Tag – Optimization Rights & Wrongs

Stuffed and/or Spammed Keyword Meta Tags are Relics of the Past!

I can’t believe my eyes when I come across keyword meta tags that have been recently “optimized” using an out-dated and totally wrong method! Meaning … I find a keyword stuffed tag! And even worse, stuffed with one word terms that will NEVER EVER do any good ranking-wise for the site!

Incredulously, many of the sites where I see these extremely amateurish stuffed tags have supposedly been optimized by a “knowledgeable SEO specialist”. Come on people … this is the year 2008! Stuffing keywords is a thing of the ancient past! So is using more than eight keyword phrases! These techniques are loooooooong gone! :D

After 1998, when Lycos dropped its ranking recognition of the keyword meta tag, and then in 2000 when AltaVista and Inktomi stopped paying attention to it, there was really little if any reason for people to optimize this tag. (Google never did pay any attention to it.)  Spammers had defeated its once useful purpose via fraudulent keyword stuffing.

The spammers inserted keywords that had nothing to do with the on-page content, thusly the terms “keyword tag stuffing” and “keyword tag spamming” became know as black-hat techniques.

To show you a real example of what is a very wrong, and very poor use of a keyword meta tag, here is a website that was recently tweaked for improved navigation and other issues, including (supposedly) optimization of all the Title and meta tags that had previously been ignored. I have knowledge of this site, as this is an individual who choose not to hire me for my services. Obviously her loss … not mine!

OK … I have removed a few terms to provide anonymity to the site owner, but take a look at this meta tag – and no, I am NOT making this up:

META name=”keywords” content=”ND, naturopathic, naturopathic medicine, emedicine, natural medicine, hormone replacement, alternative medicine, ND, complementary medicine, CAM, supplements, [name of state] naturopathic doctors, healing, health, healthy, healthier, natural supplements, [abbreviation of state], phone, consults, consulation, NMD, consultation, Weil, homeopathy, homeopathic medicine, cholesterol, heart disease, prevention, men’s health, botanical, Xymogen, detox, oil, vitamin, prostate, women’s health, menopause, bio-identical, mind-body, skin, dysbiosis, probiotic, inflammation, progesterone, GI, Alzheimer’s, dementia, Huperzine, osteoporosis, nature, anti-aging, estrogen, testosterone, counseling, Caribbean, speaker, fatigue, [another state-nonrelated to this person's business], [yet another state-nonrelated to this person's business], [another country-nonrelated to this person's business], neurotransmitters, targeted amino acid therapy, depression, anxiety, non-drug, insomnia, [11 names of cities located near the place of business], free-lance, writer”

Oh my goodness! Holy smokes! 81 keywords and/or keyword phrases! And even if the search engines gave a lot of ranking value to the keyword meta tag, almost all of these terms would NEVER EVER EVER do anything to help get this website a higher ranking for those terms.

Why? Well … just how competitive do you think the terms “oil” or “consults” are?? But more importantly, how general and non-targeted to the site’s niche are these terms? I’ll tell you … TOTALLY too general and TOTALLY non-targeted!

Are you new to the concept of keywords?? No problem! Learn the difference between using one word versus multi-word phrases in my post: Keywords Explained: What’s A Keyword? A Keyword Phrase?

I’ll stop ranting here. Let me show you a general example of what this person’s so-called SEO expert should have done with this tag:

META name=”keywords” content=”Naturopathic medicine, naturopathic doctor, alternative medicine, [name of practitioner], [name of city & state]“

Though I’ve done zero research into the terms I’ve used in this example, I do believe you get the idea that the keyword phrase terms ARE more targeted and related to a specific niche.

But hold on! I know you’re saying “then why Claudia, if you’re telling us the keyword meta tag no longer matters to the search engines … why are you telling us to optimize it? That doesn’t really make any sense!” I agree, but it is a common held belief amongst many SEO experts that there is still a half-way good reason to optimize the tag, and we do so for our clients. The reason is that Yahoo! and MSN do give a tiny bit of ranking weight to this tag (Google ignores it). So, even though you may read elsewhere to just ignore this tag altogether, my professional advice is why not go ahead and optimize it anyway. We never know if one day, this meta tag may prove to add a bit more weight to organic ranking positions.

When you are optimizing your web page’s keyword meta tag remember this: use approximately 5 targeted terms relating to what your site and that particular web page’s content is about.

This is all you need to do to properly optimize the keyword meta tag. It’s really that simple.

How To Check For Broken Links On Your Website

It’s Quite Ease to Check All the Links on Your Website

I ran a broken link check yesterday after receiving an email from a woman who had visited one of my websites and wanted me to know she loved the content I shared so freely, but thought I ought to know I had many broken links and also that my contact form just wasn’t working!

” … but I do want to mention that on your website I was unsure if you got my e-mail. I kept hitting ‘submit’ but it didn’t do anything. Maybe it was my computer. Hopefully you didn’t receive a bunch of those duplicates. Sorry if you did. Plus, on your website, sometimes the links didn’t work. Like I said, maybe it was my computer or the server. Just thought you would like to know.”

This is NOT what any website owner wants to hear, let alone someone like me who promotes high quality SEO and web development services as part of her professional repertoire!

Even though I knew darned well I didn’t have any broken links, and also that my ‘Contact Me’ form was in 100% working order, I did two things to double-check the situation.

How To Check For Broken Links On Your Site – For Free

There is a great free piece of software called “Link Sleuth” - download it here. It’s been around for quite awhile and I can tell you it is great. It’s safe (no spyware or anything like that associated with it), easy to install on your computer and it works.

It checks all the the links on your site: the ones that link all your web pages internally, and any links you have on your site pointing out to other websites. You can set parameters of what it will/won’t check. It’s very efficient.

So, after running Link Sleuth, just like I was sure of … NO broken links on my website.

Then, I tested out my contact form and again, just as I was sure of … no problems with it submitting my name and email address. It also took me right to the customized ‘Thank You’ page I always put in place for all my contact forms.

And yes, I certainly emailed the individual back, letting her know I appreciated the heads-up, but that unfortunately the problems she encountered were on her end and with her computer (or ISP), and not with my website!

It’s a good practice to periodically run a full site broken link check on all your sites. How often to run the check is up to you, but is also dependent upon how often you make changes to your website, and how many links you have pointing out to other sites. Remember that these other pages you have links pointing to may become non-existent – the website may no longer be available/active, or sometimes the web page you are linking to gets deleted.

Checking for broken links is just one of the many ways to maintain a search engine friendly AND visitor friendly website.