There must be a lot of people who are falling for emails, promising better search results. There has to be, doesn’t there? I mean, why else would the scam continue to circulate if it wasn’t effective?
I can see the draw, but in actuality, its all just a big scam (read up on Search Engine Optimization Email Scams).
I like to waste these scammers time by carrying on a conversation with them. I very simply ask:
How do you plan to get my website, on the front page, of Google’s search results and what it will cost me?
I get a wide variety of answers about the cost. However, their “plan” almost always involves Meta Tags, specifically Keywords and a whole bunch of circular talk, in an attempt to confuse me.
Its probably just as easy, not to talk to these people, but then I wouldn’t have anything to write about.
The easiest way to see if a company, offering SEO services, is a scam, is to ask them about Meta Tags and what role the Keyword Meta Tag plays.
Why ask about this?
Simple!
Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking. This was such an important point, made by Matt Cutts of Google, he made it twice; once on the official Google Webmaster Central Blog and once on his own blog (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/keywords-meta-tag-in-web-search/).
Matt even posted a short video about it.
Google hasn’t been using the Keywords Meta Tag for years (over 10 years I believe). Google identified it early, as a significant risk for keyword spamming.
To top it off, Google isn’t the only search provider, not using the Keywords Meta Tag. Only some crawlers and indexing services still use them. Knowing this, should prove SEO ploys, claiming better search rankings using Keyword Meta Tags, are nothing more than scams.
While Google says Keyword Meta Tag is not being used for search ranking, it can still help identify what information, is available, on your website. They can even be used when linking content from one website to another.
So, here is a few tips on the META NAME=”KEYWORDS” section of your website.
- Use 150 total characters or less. This includes commas and spaces.
- Use comma separated values.
<meta name=”keywords” content=”sem, search engine marketing, seo, search engine optimization, sri, search rank improvement, search results” />
- Do not use symbols in the values.
<meta name=”keywords” content=”$em, $earch engine marketing, $eo, $earch engine optimization, $ri, $earch rank improvement, $earch results” />
In this example, I used the $ to replace the “s” just to show you how some people use symbols to represent letters. Search Engines want letters.
- Capitalization is completely ignored.
- Duplicate words are most often ignored, but could be identified by crawlers and indexing services as KEYWORD SPAM. This can lead to your website being skipped or blocked by the service in the future.
<meta name=”keywords” content=”search engine marketing, search engine, search marketing, search, engine, marketing, search engine optimization, search engine, search optimization, search, engine, optimization” />
This is a perfect example of what keyword duplication can look like. Look at how many times some of the exact same terms were repeated.
In general, the five guidelines above, will help you get, all there is to get, from the meta name=”keywords” meta tag.
If you are still unsure about the roll of the Keywords Meta Tag, hire a professional to help.
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