Website help

[A.J. Briones]

Originally Posted by Travis Cossel

My goal was to combat this illusion that using all of these other website modification 'tricks' is really useful, because it isn't. I also hope I didn't offend anyone who offered up this information. The average consumer couldn't possibly know better. There are countless companies out there still selling this outdated information and there are plenty of 'self-help' websites out there that also still list this information as being useful. Unless you've really done your homework, you wouldn't know, for example, that today's search engines don't even recognize meta tags.

i have to disagree here.

to say that "today's search engines don't even recognize meta tags" is plain wrong. for example, google uses the meta description content to populate the text that goes underneath the title of the page that comes up on a search. the title text displayed on a google search result is taken from the title tag.

ever do a google search and see a result with just a url and no other information? that's because they don't have a title tag or meta description for google to pull from. yahoo and msn do exactly the same thing. for that reason alone you should have these tags up.

i'm not an average consumer. i worked for many years as a web developer, and have friends that currently work in google and yahoo. in a past life, i managed the development of sega.com and the dreamcast network.

i have a website right now that places nowhere in a search engine because i rushed to put it together (my reel site, ajbriones.com). no title tag, no meta tags. if i put my meta tags in, it will show up higher on a search engine ranking. period.

[Travis Cossel]

I tried to be clear, but I guess I wasn't. Here is what I wrote:

"Google doesn't need a meta description, but if you provide one, it will be used for that text display. It doesn't, however, use that description text to determine relevance and ranking."

So please notice that I didn't say Google doesn't use the meta description, I simply stated that, in regards to ranking, meta information is now ignored. You pointed out that Google uses the meta description for text as if I had somehow said that it didn't. I was very clear that Google DOES use the meta description for that.

Please also notice that in my earlier posts I never stated that having a title was a waste of time. I simply stated that in regards to search engine positioning, it doesn't do a lot for you. The same goes for avoiding tables and frames and images and so on.

All you have to do is do a search for something, look at the results of the search, examine the websites and the associated coding, and repeat the process about a dozen times or so. You will quickly come to understand that there is very little consistency in website rankings. Many of the listings won't even apply to your search, while some of the websites that are listed very high are breaking all the "rules".

I'm not knocking your past experience, but I've been developing websites for a long time as well, and trust me, things have changed.

[A.J. Briones]

Originally Posted by Travis Cossel

I tried to be clear, but I guess I wasn't. Here is what I wrote:

"Google doesn't need a meta description, but if you provide one, it will be used for that text display. It doesn't, however, use that description text to determine relevance and ranking."

ah, but prior to that, here's what you also said regarding meta tags:

"Not to beat a dead horse, but why spend even 5 minutes on it if the search engines won't even recognize the tags anyways?"

to which, i called shenanigans.

and crawlers still do use meta tags for search rankings. i know this for sure. will it get you ranked "#1"? no. ranking also takes traffic into consideration, so the most trafficked sites in a keyword will get higher placement. this does not include paid placement. will good meta tags rank you higher than sites that don't have them? yes.

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by A.J. Briones

ah, but prior to that, here's what you also said regarding meta tags:

"Not to beat a dead horse, but why spend even 5 minutes on it if the search engines won't even recognize the tags anyways?"

to which, i called shenanigans.

and crawlers still do use meta tags for search rankings. i know this for sure. will it get you ranked "#1"? no. ranking also takes traffic into consideration, so the most trafficked sites in a keyword will get higher placement. this does not include paid placement. will good meta tags rank you higher than sites that don't have them? yes.

Once again, we were talking in terms of ranking at that point, not in terms of displaying text with your listing. Sorry, no shenanigans. d:-)

I guess you and I will just have to agree to disagree. I have read (from what I consider to be reliable sources - one of whom was listed here earlier in the thread) that search engines no longer use meta tags for ranking purposes.

Do I know that for sure? I guess not, seeing as how I didn't write the code for any search engine out there. But then again, neither did you or any of the millions of places claiming to know how it all works.

I guess my point is that those who are on the leading edge of researching search engines have stated that meta tags are no longer used, so I choose to believe their findings over the places who have articles from 2002.

So now I'm wondering if the horse is dead yet? d:-)

[Keith Loh]

Okay, keywords are in question.

But having a Title and Description could still be useful when results are displayed and it doesn't take 10 seconds to add them.

Besides, it looks dumb when your pages don't have titles.

Let's put this horse out to pasture now.

[A.J. Briones]

from the horse's mouth (google technology overview):

PageRank Technology: PageRank performs an objective measurement of the importance of web pages by solving an equation of more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Instead of counting direct links, PageRank interprets a link from Page A to Page B as a vote for Page B by Page A. PageRank then assesses a page's importance by the number of votes it receives.

PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a vote, as votes from some pages are considered to have greater value, thus giving the linked page greater value. Important pages receive a higher PageRank and appear at the top of the search results. Google's technology uses the collective intelligence of the web to determine a page's importance. There is no human involvement or manipulation of results, which is why users have come to trust Google as a source of objective information untainted by paid placement.

basically, it's a popularity contest. also:

Hypertext-Matching Analysis: Google's search engine also analyzes page content. However, instead of simply scanning for page-based text (which can be manipulated by site publishers through meta-tags), Google's technology analyzes the full content of a page and factors in fonts, subdivisions and the precise location of each word. Google also analyzes the content of neighboring web pages to ensure the results returned are the most relevant to a user's query.

it does not state that google ignores meta tags, but that it takes the "full content" of the page as well as neighboring content to determine relevance to any particular query.

so, meta tags are used in addition to the full content of a website to determine ranking and relevance to a particular query.

basically, do a link search (google "link:yourwebsiteurl"). if there are no results, google isn't spidering your site, hence you are not getting parsed at all. get it ready, then submit it to: http://www.google.com/addurl/

meta tags are still being used by inktomi/msn, so you should use them.

[Travis Cossel]

lol and lol and lol

I totally agree with you that adding a title and a description is useful. I never disagreed with anyone on that point. Not at all. Holy crap, how do I get so misunderstood?

In other news, I searched Google for "dead horse" and this thread came up #1, how about that? d:-)

That was a joke, obviously.

[Heather Darling]

Yes, meta tags are useful, but not the only way that a search index looks at your page. As someone else above said, they also look at the content of each page. Place some of the more relevant keywords such as wedding, videography, your city, your state, video and so on closer to the top of the page. Make sure that you do not just add a bunch of keywords to the pages of your sight but write a paragraph that uses those words, this will help in your ranking.

Another thing that the search engine looks for is how popular your website is. If you have alot of links from other websites your site will, in the search engines eyes, be more important than a sight that has no links to it. Go to places such as wedj.com, onewed.com and other such sights that will link to you. Also talk to any local vendors or friends & family with websites and ask them to link to you also.

Ranking on a search engine is a craps shoot. There is no guarantee as to where you'll show up in the listing but every little bit helps.

[Dan Euritt]

Originally Posted by Travis Cossel

EXCEPT
. . . paid listings. This is one of the biggest reasons that search engines have all but eliminated your ability to manipulate your website higher in the rankings. Google and Yahoo both have systems in place that allow you to bid on keyword groups to gain ranking.

that's not how it works at all... what you pay for with google adwords is a listing in a seperate category of search results... while that paid category puts you on the front page of the term that was searched for, it does NOT have the slightest influence on where you rank for search results.

most search engines behave in a similar manner, because if they mixed paid ranking with free ranking, they would lose all legitimacy as search engines.

things like page titles are mission critical for ranking in the search engines, because they let the search engine know what each individual page of your site is about... that is not manipulation, because the search engine can't return results for non-existant information.

yes travis, people try to take advantage of that, but it's difficult with google, because most new websites don't have enuf legitimate incoming links to rank well right off the bat... it typically takes months to rank with google... with msn, however, you can sometimes rank well right off the bat with a new website that has the proper page titles and keyword optimization in the body of the page.

travis... i'm really restraining myself when i say, please stop posting misleading information about search engines.

[Travis Cossel]

Originally Posted by Dan Euritt

that's not how it works at all... what you pay for with google adwords is a listing in a seperate category of search results... while that paid category puts you on the front page of the term that was searched for, it does NOT have the slightest influence on where you rank for search results.

most search engines behave in a similar manner, because if they mixed paid ranking with free ranking, they would lose all legitimacy as search engines.

things like page titles are mission critical for ranking in the search engines, because they let the search engine know what each individual page of your site is about... that is not manipulation, because the search engine can't return results for non-existant information.

yes travis, people try to take advantage of that, but it's difficult with google, because most new websites don't have enuf legitimate incoming links to rank well right off the bat... it typically takes months to rank with google... with msn, however, you can sometimes rank well right off the bat with a new website that has the proper page titles and keyword optimization in the body of the page.

travis... i'm really restraining myself when i say, please stop posting misleading information about search engines.

Oh . . my . . . God . . . PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT I WRITE.

I never, NOT ONCE, stated that paid listings would get you listed higher in the 'free' listings. I NEVER SAID THAT. Good grief, read my freaking posts more carefully before you warn me about restraining yourself.

[Steven Davis]

Originally Posted by Jason Bowers

Hello everyone,
I was wondering if some of you might take the time to review my basic website...

Jason, It is my opinion that if you want to really optimise your business, you could learn basic web design. I was doing web design before videography, and have been since able to incorporate both together. I hack on my site continuously, infact if you look at it today, tommorow it will be different.

When having a website, you have to maintain it, change it, etc. That's either done with a good relationship with your designer, or you can do it yourself.

Technically speaking, you could spend a little time learning how to use tables and css. Once you get that down, you should be good to go. I learned a lot hanging out in chat rooms about HTML. I've been in one for 5 years and learn a lot from people asking questions etc.

I don't claim to be a great web designer and I still am trying to learn. But one principle is always remains constant; the easier people can see what you are capable of, i.e ease of web navigation, the better.

I understand where you are in web development. I was there. Any time I can be of help, you can either email me or find me on the IRC Undernet in #HTML.