If there’s one myth that’s definitely become common – more than ever with the ever-increasing popularity of content management systems (CMS) or blogs – it is that meta tags are no longer important.  Well, we disagree – to some extent.  Meta tags still play an integral function in the usability of a website and a site’s overall optimization for search.

What Are Meta Tags?
 
Meta tags are simply special predefined snippets of code that are typically placed within the section of an html based web page.  Common meta tags define the site’s description <yes google uses snippets – yes google says descriptions don’t matter>, keywords<yes-this is important to you knowing what your document is relevant to>, and for our purposes, we’ll say the site’s title as well <yes – the title is not a meta tag, but is part of the header data of your document>. Regardless, In the early days of the web, search engines actually used what was written in the meta tags to rank a website.  It wasn’t long after designers discovered this connection that they began to alter these tags (often deceptively) to improve search engine rankings.

The Misconception Is That Meta Tags Fell Out of Favor.
 
As search engines became more and more aware of the tactics many site owners were using with meta tags to (not always honestly) influence the search results, they more or less began dismissing the tags completely, algorithmically, for results and ranking purposes.  Naturally, many unaware practitioners of web design and development also began to ignore the behind the scene code markups, dismissing them as no longer necessary – the misconception was that if search engines were no longer using them, then there was no point in taking the time to include them in a site’s code.

But That Is A Problem…
 
Some search engines do still use the meta tags and titles in a variety of really important ways.  For example, the title and description used for your site’s listing display on search engine results pages is often derived from a combination of the description tag, the title tag, and the first few words of the first paragraph.  A well written, well defined description can compell searchers to click through and override googles algorithm which will provide content snippets when your document description is not relevant to the actual content on the site. So while many of the tags no longer influence ranking, they certainly do have an influence when it comes to drawing the visitor’s click.

There are a variety of specific tactics commonly used to optimize these tags in order to best explain to a potential visitor what your site is about and convince them to click on your listing instead of skipping it for the next one down on the results page.  Your SEO professional will be able to successfully implement the correct plan for these, and it is important to make sure they’re optimized.

When technology changes so rapidly, as it does with the web and web design, it’s easy to miss certain aspects of good fundamental web development.  Ignoring the meta tags is one of these things – it might seem harmless, but it can have an adverse affect on your site.