Are Meta Tag Generators Good to Use?

[xenon]

Does anybody know if it is recommended to use "meta tag tools"? I am not knowing so much about Meta Tags and it seems even their is much confusion about there usefulness.

Conclusion seems to be from my own research that although "some engines such as Google" do not give much importance, if any, to meta tags there are many different/smaller search engines and directories that actually do, so it is worth while doing apparantly.

I also tried to submit my site to one and got rejected because the meta tags were not properly done.

Does anybody know of the easiest one to use? I had a look at mixcats but it has boxes for "generator" and "date" and these are things I have no idea about.

Rgds

[SEO_AM]

The only METAs you need worry about: Title, Description, Keywords (for Yahoo not Google). The rest can be basically ignored because almost all of your results will come from Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask (usually in that order). Others may have additionals, but I focus on the above.

[xenon]

Thanks SEO AM,

As an interesting point I will try to find the search engine that said my meta's were not good enough!! It is kind of used apparantly as a test to see if your meta tags are ok, its not a major engine but it rejected all of my sites :(.
Just when you think you are getting the hang of it, to get rejected is rather demoralizing.

[xenon]

Here: Anybody who thinks their met tags are in acceptable order then please try to submit to this small but significant directory: it is free but will reject you if your meta tags are not in place http://www.aeiwi.com/

[SEO_AM]

No problem. Thanks for the link. I was not in that directory. ;)

Edit: If you want a good meta tag tool, use this one: http://www.scrubtheweb.com/abs/meta-check.html. I use it on all my pages although the importance of tags has diminished. It will get you by all search engines.

[xenon]

:) This is one of the most enjoyable and freindly forums I think I have ever come to.
Thanks for the tip.

Incidentally may we know please??? Did you get accepted? Alot of people do not get accepted into that one due to their thinking mistakenly they have good and correct Metas.

Don't worry if you are not having your metas in order I think it is very common not to get listed first time around in that site. In fact I got the details from an SEO persons site and they purposely use that one as a way to "test" your Metas.

[MCSE]

I was accepted on the second attempt. I was forced to write a new lengthly description.

[xenon]

Phwew! I was thinking I am the only one who got rejected rejected around here!!:)

[SEO_AM]

[QUOTE=Zeno]Phwew! I was thinking I am the only one who got rejected rejected around here!!:)[/QUOTE]

When I said "No problem" in my prior post I meant it went through the first time. :D

[xenon]

Yeah but I bet my Meta Tags are bigger than yours! and more interesting as well!! :)

[owlcroft]

The best meta-tag generator in the known universe is the human brain.

It's bad enough that people use software to generate entire pages (full of noncompliant and bloated code), but for a few simple lines? Geez.

Rule: keep your meta-tags to the fewest practicable, and as short as possible while letting them do their job. That is because you don't want to push your "good stuff" (headers and body text) any farther down the page than absolutely necessary. Searchbots do not read the web page that visitors see on their screen: they read your HTML. It behooves you to get your important keyword-laden headers and text as close as possible to the true tops of your pages, not just the tops of your visitors' browser screens.

The most important meta-tag is description, because that tag (or some leading part of it--it will be truncated if it runs long) may well be used as the description of your site in search-engine results. For this one, use less SEO and more SUO (Search User Optimization): imagine you've searched for a topic and are running your eye down the results page, seeing which to click first. You want your description to be the one where the user says "Aha! That's what I want."

Do a number of searches and see what typical lengths of description Google and the others employ and use that as a guide to content length for this tag.

You should also put a few select, non-spammy keywords in the keywords tag for those engines that still pay it any mind.

That's it, except for the mechanically required (or well-advised) "Content-Type" tag. Skip all the rest, and sleep easy for it.

[xenon]

[QUOTE=owlcroft]The best meta-tag generator in the known universe is the human brain.It's bad enough that people use software to generate entire pages (full of noncompliant and bloated code), but for a few simple lines? Geez..[/QUOTE]

Hi Owl!! Your point is taken!! Last time I checked I still had my brain. So us newbies should abandon the machine generated Meta Tags then? Well my only reason was that I did not know a reliable resource that I could learn exactly what to do . Further more it gets confusing when so many persons have different ideas about the correct Meta Tags.



[QUOTE=owlcroft] Rule: keep your meta-tags to the fewest practicable, and as short as possible while letting them do their job.[/QUOTE]
Yes, but if you are like me you don't know how short or how long, I mean thats the problem, what is essential and what is not, with a machine the idea is that they do it for us, its not being lazy its lack of knowledge and confidence. If you could point us/me to a place that I can learn exactly whats needed then that would be excellent.

[QUOTE=owlcroft]That's it, except for the mechanically required (or well-advised) "Content-Type" tag. Skip all the rest, and sleep easy for it.[/QUOTE]

The rest of what you say makes really good sense, thanks very much its appreciated and taken on board. So one question is what do you mean by your reference to "mechanically required" does that mean allways required or do you mean it should be mechanically generated with an online tool, I rather think you mean "allways required".

In summary: It seems that there bite looks worse than their bark. To non programmers and not coders like me, it looks complex and strange, bits of code and funny shaped symbols that don't make any sense.