HTML keywords make no sense

[xoggoth]

If Keywords had anything much to do with search rating, wouldn't there be some sites at top of search that don't mention the words you searched for at all? Surely some people put things in keywords but forget to mention them in text?

LIKE ME! Just twigged why we come up quite high with animals and plants in search term but nowhere with wildlife! I've only mentioned it in keywords.

[NickFitz]

Google completely ignores <meta> keywords, as they have been widely used for spamming purposes in the past (e.g. porn sites stuffed full of keywords like "florida hotels" and "cheap mortgages").

Some of the other search engines look at them, but they aren't given anything like as much importance as the actual content of the page.

I never bother with them myself unless a client specifically wants them.

[Durbs]

I never bother with them myself unless a client specifically wants them.

Aye, keywords tag was a bit of a silly idea really, don't bother as any engine worth being in won't read them.

I'll just plug my hot @nal site with loads of 'jordan vegas wedding' keywords this week etc - just unworkable.

If i were writing a search engine, i'd check these tags and anything containing keywords not linked to the content i'd drop like a stone and i guess Google have thought of this too,

[NickFitz]

If i were writing a search engine, i'd check these tags and anything containing keywords not linked to the content i'd drop like a stone and i guess Google have thought of this too,

The search engines that still look at keywords (which includes Yahoo!'s Overture-based engine, unless they've now consummated the deal that hands their search over to Microsoft's Bing) aren't quite that harsh, in that they understand that synonyms may be present and presumably take account thereof in their algorithms; but obvious attempts at spamming are punished with extreme severity.

I don't imagine this would affect xog: the algorithms would be able to grasp that "animals" and "plants" in the copy are words denoting concepts related to the concept denoted by "wildlife" in the keywords. Keywords like "cheap sluts" or "florida mortgages" on a page about the bittern would probably still get penalised though

[xoggoth]

Damn. I was hoping cheap sluts in keywords would get more visitors.

PS Used that oHttp code thing you gave me last year to write an excel sheet that scans google pages for a given search term to see where my site comes. However, as one has to put a delay in to avoid being blocked it's probably quicker to do it manually.

[AtW]

Damn. I was hoping cheap sluts in keywords would get more visitors.

Use keyword research (from say WordTracker who happen to be SKA client) - some keywords are extremely competitive, don't bother trying to target them.

These days keywords in anchor text of relevant backlinks matter a lot. SKA suddenly makes sense, eh?

[thunderlizard]

Keywords

They are a leftover from the days when everybody who used the internet was honest. And to think that was within our lifetime!

[xoggoth]

Tried some of those things that analise websites and suggest keywords. Either totally obvious or complete bollox, like "bird peanut feeders". The syntax and speed checkers are good though. Text analysers maybe, my site is New York Times level apparently.

PS This CSS layout stuff ain't half as good as tables. Tables are REAL MEN, don't let themselves get pushed around by anything.

[AtW]

PS This CSS layout stuff ain't half as good as tables. Tables are REAL MEN, don't let themselves get pushed around by anything.

Aye!

HTML was good enough

This bloody CSS was created by designers as a job creation tool IMHO...

[Ardesco]

Tried some of those things that analise websites and suggest keywords. Either totally obvious or complete bollox, like "bird peanut feeders". The syntax and speed checkers are good though. Text analysers maybe, my site is New York Times level apparently.

PS This CSS layout stuff ain't half as good as tables. Tables are REAL MEN, don't let themselves get pushed around by anything.

Erm I think you meant analyse...