[Web4lib] Google and Meta tags

[Richard Wiggins]

What Google says in a patent application, and what people interpret from 
that, should not affect what Web content providers do.
 Google didn't invent meta tags; Google doesn't own meta tags as a concept. 
Google says their mantra is "Don't be evil" -- it would be evil if they 
render meta tags radioactive. 
 Pragmatically, of course, you probably want to tailor what you do w/r/t 
meta tags and your site in general to match how Google (and others, though 
Google is the 900 pound gorilla) will respond. 
 Moreover, I do not believe the claim. I believe that if your meta tags 
match your content, Google (and others) will not punish you for it. Here are 
the meta keywords for Michigan State University:
 <meta name="Keywords" content="michigan state university,michigan
state,msu,msu home page,Spartans,advancing knowledge,transforming
lives,sparty,land grant,1855,east lansing,research universities,study
abroad,graduate school,international programs,agriculture,distance
education" />
 If I search Google for MSU's tagline, "Advancing knowledge, transforming 
lives" MSU comes up as the first hit. The tagline only appears on the 
university home page as an Alt parameter for an image. I've got to believe 
they indexed the meta keywords. 
 There is a school of thought out there that says that Google et al ignore 
meta tags. Another school says that they punish you for using them. We 
cannot believe both of these things at once. 
 In any event, as long as you are not index spamming, I suggest that people 
not be shy about making legitimate use of Meta Keywords and Meta 
Description. Instead, I encourage people to exploit them properly as they 
were intended to be used.
 /rich

 On 7/21/05, Patricia F Anderson <pfa at umich.edu> wrote: 
> 
> Hi, Carolyn,
> 
> What you believe your customer is hoping to do could possibly cause
> problems for them. My understanding of the Google patent is that they try
> to prevent obvious manipulation of the rankings by such techniques as
> metatags, and the use of these can actually lead to a site being ranked
> lower.
> 
> "Careful reading leaves an impression that the ideas behind the patent
> are designed to build a firewall against link spam and other forms of
> obvious ranking manipulation."
> Google Patent Study
> Jim Hedger | Contributing Writer | 2005-06-09
> <
> http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/searchinsider/wpn-49-20050609GooglePatentStudy.html
> >
> 
> "That is, you may do everything by the book, but something somewhere trips
> a spam filter and your site may mistakenly get sandboxed, penalized or
> banned."
> Google's Patent Implications
> By Jill Whalen - June 30, 2005
> <http://www.searchengineguide.com/whalen/2005/0630_jw1.html>
> 
> Just something to ponder,
> 
> Patricia Anderson, pfa at umich.edu
> 
>