Announcement

**Siamese-Dream.Com** · 03-30-11, 07:08 PM

Re: Head Tag Content/css Meta Tag Placement

I should set the meta tags for each page correct?

Yes.

Look for a post by Bill Weiland on how to populate your meta tags using ToolKit.

For products, it will basically take the description, strip out the html tags (if you have any in your description), and truncate it to a length that you can define.

The Category page metatags version of the function takes the category header and does the same thing.

**usmcss** · 04-01-11, 06:47 AM

Re: Head Tag Content/css Meta Tag Placement

Thanks Mark!

**Bruce - PhosphorMedia** · 04-01-11, 06:58 AM

Re: Head Tag Content/css Meta Tag Placement

There is also the Category and Product Meta Tag settings. Essentially custom fields that can be defined for each category and product. While this does require that content is defined for each category and product (which can be done offline in Excel or something simular) the advantage is that specific categories or products can human tailored to improve results. You might even setup both, with a test to see if a built in tag is defined and if not, use the dynamically generated one.

**usmcss** · 04-01-11, 08:13 AM

Re: Head Tag Content/css Meta Tag Placement

Thanks Bruce!

I think this is hindering my website. The only way people are finding me now is by ether a refering URL or searching using the key words "Movie Poster Frames" I want people to be able to find me by searching keywords such as "Frames, Movie Posters, Picture Frame etc.

So my thinking is to put better content on each product page and get different meta tags for each page that represents that product.

Right now I have all my page and category Meta Tags being placed using Head Tag Content/Meta Tag. Which makes every page the same.

<head>
<title>Front Loading Movie Poster Frames - Quality Anodized Aluminum - From Spotlight Displays: About Our Frames</title>T" />ion" content="Test about discription" />
<base href="http://www.spotlightdisplays.com/mm5/">
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="css/00000003/computer_styles.css" media="">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
<meta name="description" content="Frames for any size Movie Poster. Custom cut frames for any size graphic. We do it all, fast turn around on custom frames"/>
<meta name="keywords" content="movie poster frames, poster frame, movie posters, front load frames, collectables, movie stars, hollywood, one sheets, frames, poster frames, 27 x 40 frames, 27 x 40 movie poster frame, home theater decor, picture frames, front loading frames"/>

If I goto each product and place the meta tags in that way there would be double meta tags.

I could delete the meta tags in the Head Tag Content but then how would I put this line in:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>

I could just leave that meta tag line in the Head Tag Content but then It wouldn't line up with the meta tags that I put in using each product and category page insert tool:

<head><title>Front Loading Movie Poster Frames - Quality Anodized Aluminum - From Spotlight Displays: About Our Frames</title><meta name="keywords" content="about test" /><meta name="description" content="about description test" /><base href="http://www.spotlightdisplays.com/mm5/"><link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="css/00000003/computer_styles.css" media=""><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>

Does it matter that the Content Type Meta Tag is not with the other Meta tags?

**usmcss** · 04-02-11, 11:59 AM

Re: Head Tag Content/css Meta Tag Placement

Would it be ok to have my Meta Tags as follows:

<head>
<title>Front Loading Movie Poster Frames - Quality Anodized Aluminum - From Spotlight Displays: About Our Frames</title>

<meta name="keywords" content="about test" />
<meta name="description" content="about description test" />

<base href="http://www.spotlightdisplays.com/mm5/"><link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"

ref="css/00000003/computer_styles.css" media="">

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>

</head>

Does it matter that the "Content Type" Meta Tag is not with the other Meta tags?

**wajake41** · 04-10-11, 02:07 PM

Re: Head Tag Content/css Meta Tag Placement

Hello forum: I've just recently read that <meta tags no longer are used by search engines to index pages and haven't been for some time. It was stated that Google and others gave up the use of <meta tags because of keyword stuffing in these tags. The article went on to state that the search engines are now using the actual page content to determine relevance for generic placement.
It also stated that <h1 tags also have no importance to page ranking.

Was this more SEO hocus pocus guessing by the unknowing or worthwhile information? Anyone know?

Regards, Larry

As an aside, I recently tried the following: Using another site's content, obviously generated by a content farm, but ranking on the second page with Google, I added (with attribution and a link) their content to the PROD footer of a couple of our same products, wondering if it would increase our generic placement for these products.
Not seeing any change in our generic placement after a couple of weeks, I removed it.
So how do you get better generic placement? A penny for your thoughts.

**Pete McNamara** · 04-10-11, 02:43 PM

Re: Head Tag Content/css Meta Tag Placement

1. Google is not all search engines i.e. there are other search engines and they all operate differently and have different algorithm settings, so be careful of just optimizing for Google.

2. Google does evaluate the meta description tag.

3. It is understood that Google now evaluates something like 200 factors to determine rankings. As someone who has been conducting highly successful SEO for nearly 15 years now, I couldn't tell you whether or not it has any importance in the current algorithm and I don't care. Google engineers dial up the importance of some factors and dial down the importance of others with every algorithm change. I remember some people trumpeting that they no longer bothered with meta descriptions about 6 years ago (approximately - I am a bit rusty on the dates) because Google did not include them in their algorithm and then about a year later Google dialed up their importance again. Whoops.

4. Optimizing for the current algorithm is no longer effective (it was the bees knees 10 years ago though) so now the best strategy is to play the percentages - i.e. have good meta descriptions for when the algorithm gives it some importance (and it will sometime)

5. Being on the first page for organic search is no good if few people click through. Google generally displays your meta description as the description. Why would you allow a search engine to decide what words go in there - i.e. the words that determine whether the searcher clicks through or not? Look at all the effort and money that companies using paid search put into analyzing and testing the descriptions of their PPC advertisements - they do that for good reason. The description of an organic search result is just as important to get people to click through.

6. Until 5.5, MM didn't allow for custom meta descriptions. They now do and you should take full advantage of this feature.

My 2 cents - hope you find it useful.

**wajake41** · 04-10-11, 04:12 PM

Re: Head Tag Content/css Meta Tag Placement

Hi Pete: Thanks for the fedback. I was hoping to start a discussion of current thinking? on SEO optimization and your reply is a good start.

And actually, on our sites, we are employing Bill Weiland's toolkit in the Head tag/CSS tab to dynamically generate the <meta tags on our CTGY & PROD pages. Glad to find it isn't a waste of server cycles.

Regards, Larry

**tammu** · 04-11-11, 12:34 PM

Re: Head Tag Content/css Meta Tag Placement

check this out
http://www.google.com/howgoogleworks/

in the first video, Mr. Cutts from Google talks about how the Google algorithm uses around 200 questions to rank a website based on a KEYWORD.

here are some of the questions he mentions

How many times does this page contain your keywords?
Do the words contain in the title?
Do the words contain in the url?
Directly adjacent?
Does the page include synonyms for those words?
Is this page from a quality website?
What is this page's pagerank? ( depends on outside links from imported websites)

Thanks
Tammu

Announcement

Head Tag Content/css Meta Tag Placement

Head Tag Content/css Meta Tag Placement

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment