use of meta tags.

[A Leon]

Is the number of words entered in
META name="keywords" content=""
illimited ?
And can I also enter words in other languages - even arabic ?

Does entering too much words not result in a negative reaction of the search
robot ?

And I suppose it helps to enter these words also in free text further in the
document ? Is the position : beginning or end of the document of interest.

Thanks on forehand for any help

 

[David Dorward]

Is the number of words entered in
META name="keywords" content=""
illimited ?

The specification doesn't impose any limit.

And can I also enter words in other languages - even arabic ?

Of course, just make sure you use a suitable character encoding for your
document.

Does entering too much words not result in a negative reaction of the
search robot ?

Search engines do not publish the rules they use for indexing, anecdotal
evidence would suggest that those few search engines which pay any
attention to meta keywords penalise pages using large numbers of them.

 

[Toby A Inkster]

Is the number of words entered in
META name="keywords" content=""
illimited ?

No. There is a maximum of three. Choose them wisely.

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Is the number of words entered in
META name="keywords" content=""
illimited ?

No, you can spamdex there as much as you wish, and indexing robots can
ignore it or punish it as much as they wish.

And can I also enter words in other languages - even arabic ?

Naturally. Of course it gets more and more pointless.

If your document is not in Arabic, why would you like to fool people into
finding it when they are looking for documents in Arabic?

Does entering too much words not result in a negative reaction of the
search robot ?

Absolutely maybe, depending unconditionally on the circumstances.

And I suppose it helps to enter these words also in free text further
in the document ?

Are you asking us what you suppose?

Is the position : beginning or end of the document
of interest.

It is.

To summarize, forget that you ever heard of <meta name="keywords" ...>.
The _only_ situation where they might make some sense is this: You have
document that is historical, or for some other reason the content proper
must not be changed, yet it contains several essential words in
_declined_ forms only. (This is largely irrelevant to languages such as
English and French, which have very little declination, but more
important to languages such as German, and rather essential to languages
like Hungarian.) Since people probably use the base forms of words in
their queries, you might consider adding a <meta> tag that lists base
forms of such essential words. - But for documents with modifiable
content, it is better to reformulate or add sentences so that key words
appear in base form too.

 

[A Leon]

Thanks for your reaction.

No, you can spamdex there as much as you wish, and indexing robots can
ignore it or punish it as much as they wish.


Naturally. Of course it gets more and more pointless.

If your document is not in Arabic, why would you like to fool people into
finding it when they are looking for documents in Arabic?

I speak Flemish and may enter a search term in Flemish.
But I am also interested in an English reply as I understand English too...

Absolutely maybe, depending unconditionally on the circumstances.


Are you asking us what you suppose?

Supposing (in Flemish : veronderstellen) means that you think it is like
that - but are not entirely sure and that you consequentially seek
confirmation.

It is.

so line numbers should be important ?

To summarize, forget that you ever heard of <meta name="keywords" ...>.
The _only_ situation where they might make some sense is this: You have
document that is historical, or for some other reason the content proper
must not be changed, yet it contains several essential words in
_declined_ forms only. (This is largely irrelevant to languages such as
English and French, which have very little declination, but more
important to languages such as German, and rather essential to languages
like Hungarian.) Since people probably use the base forms of words in
their queries, you might consider adding a <meta> tag that lists base
forms of such essential words. - But for documents with modifiable
content, it is better to reformulate or add sentences so that key words
appear in base form too.

Do I conclude that for the average search robot, a word in the besa text is
as important as a word in the meta tag ?

thanks.

 

[Eric B. Bednarz]

To summarize, forget that you ever heard of <meta name="keywords" ...>.
The _only_ situation where they might make some sense is this: You have
document that is historical, or for some other reason the content proper
must not be changed, yet it contains several essential words in
_declined_ forms only.

Forgetting their irrelevance for search engines due to excessive abuse
for a moment, keywords *could* also be used sensible for common typos
and odd synonyms; some pre made local search engine facilities provide
support for that since it is rather simple, in such cases possibly even
in adantage for the user.

 

[Spartanicus]

Forgetting their irrelevance for search engines due to excessive abuse
for a moment, keywords *could* also be used sensible for common typos

This is a job for the SE, not for a site's author. SEs cater for that
sort of thing already (Google: Did you mean "flubberwocky"?).

 

[DU]

[snipped]

And can I also enter words in other languages - even arabic ?

Naturally. Of course it gets more and more pointless.

If your document is not in Arabic, why would you like to fool people into
finding it when they are looking for documents in Arabic?

[snipped]

What if the document is in English but you also have corresponding
translations in German, Spanish, Portuguese, etc..? I happen to have
such website, you see, and I have included 25 groups of keywords for
each language.

DU

 

[David Dorward]

What if the document is in English but you also have corresponding
translations in German, Spanish, Portuguese, etc..?

Then you would put the German keywords in the meta data for the German
translation, and the Spanish keywords in the meta data for the Spanish
translation and so on.

 

[Big Bill]

Is the number of words entered in
META name="keywords" content=""
illimited ?

I've seen it suggested that around 150 characters including white
space is the optimum.

And can I also enter words in other languages - even arabic ?

Well you could ........

Does entering too much words not result in a negative reaction of the search
robot ?

No, they'll just ignore most of it.

And I suppose it helps to enter these words also in free text further in the
document ? Is the position : beginning or end of the document of interest.

Some say both. Can't hurt.

Thanks on forehand for any help

No sweat.

BB

 

[Big Bill]

The specification doesn't impose any limit.


Of course, just make sure you use a suitable character encoding for your
document.


Search engines do not publish the rules they use for indexing, anecdotal
evidence would suggest that those few search engines which pay any
attention to meta keywords penalise pages using large numbers of them.

Not any anecdotes I ever heard.

BB

 

[Big Bill]

Thanks for your reaction.

Um, you mean "thanks for your response".

BB

 

[Big Bill]

No. There is a maximum of three. Choose them wisely.

Ignore this pratt.

BB

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

I speak Flemish and may enter a search term in Flemish.
But I am also interested in an English reply as I understand English
too...

Then run some searches with English keywords. It is unrealistic to expect
to find English documents when your search terms are Flemish.
As an author, you would mislead people if you included e.g. Arabic
keywords into a document in Flemish, since then people who use Arabic
terms in their searches would find your pages, irrespectively of whether
they understand a word of Flemish or not.

 

[Rob McAninch]

so line numbers should be important ?

Perhaps not so much line numbers, as simply the amount of text.
That is, you might run a bunch of HTML on one line. The basic
idea is the further into you page a robot has to read the less
weight you keyword will have.

Certainly the best keywords are the ones used on the page itself
for headings or in the content. As well as the title of the page,
even alt="" values in images are most likely carrying more weight
than meta keywords.

 

[A Leon]

It is not because somebody enters a Keyword in let's say arabic that he is
only looking for an arabic webpage in this connection.
He is looking for information regarding the keyword.
It is of course nice if he finds a usable page in arabic.
But if an english page describes better what he is looking for he will
certainly prefer that page if he understands english.
I speak four languages and will allways try to find that page where I find
the most detailed information and I will not be looking first for a page in
my mothertongue.
greetings

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

But if an english page describes better what he is looking for he will
certainly prefer that page if he understands english.

And if he does not?

The point becomes clearer if you consider some relatively rare languages.
Would you like to find a page in Finnish when you have written French in
your search box?

 

[David Dorward]

A Leon wrote:

Please read http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?How_to_post before responding.

It is not because somebody enters a Keyword in let's say arabic that he is
only looking for an arabic webpage in this connection.
He is looking for information regarding the keyword.
It is of course nice if he finds a usable page in arabic.
But if an english page describes better what he is looking for he will
certainly prefer that page if he understands english.

If http://www.zompist.com/numbers.shtml can be considered reliable, there
are over 4,500 human languages.

Do you propose putting meta data in for every single one of them?

That's going to make one very big HTML document.