Which is best?

[l234244]

Hello folks, just me again, with yet another question. If anyone could tell me which tags are best used for keywords:

<U>
<B>
<EM>
<STRONG>

I'm guessing that a selection is best used but wonder which ones if any offers a greater advantage.

Cheers

Michael

[I, Brian]

Best tags for keywords are:

<a href="">link text</a>

:)

No, seriously. :)

But as for making text stand out - my understanding is that search engines will take notice of text highlighted, so it's a case of apples and oranges. I'm sure I saw some tests on SitePoint a while back where someone demonstrated that <strong> tags were just as recognised as <b> code for ranking purposes.

However, as before, the best tag is the link one. Many people completely fail to appreciate that.



EDIT: Thanks for the later typo tip. :)

[seo guy]

Damn straight I Bri Guy!

As for emphasis tags, use it where it fits on your page, not where you think the SE's want to see it, if you've written your pages thematically it should reflect in your emphasis tags. They have such small wieght it rarely matters anyways

[l234244]

Hi Brian, thanks for help. Was just checking SEOGUY's code and it appears that he uses the <strong> tag more that the <b>. Thought maybe there was something I was missing out on.

Anyway, just to point out Brian, while checking out your site I noticed there was an error 1/3 of way down:

50 links a day - for just £39.95 per onth

Presuming it supposed to say month, might have to take that offer up some time in the future.

Cheers

Michael

[Nick0r]

Out of those 4 i'd go for <b>.

[owlcroft]

Considering the troubles that the normal webmaster typically endures to get a good site together, it is scarcely any noticeable addition to take the trouble to get one's tags right.

By "right", I mean in conformity with the w3c recommendations. Those, quite sensibly, recommend that wherever possible, interpretation be left to the client side. Thus, when we want strong text , we should use the <strong> tag, and when we want emphasized text, we should use the <em> tag. And, in both cases, we let the client decide how to render those appearances.

It is only when for some special reason, that we particularly need to exactly and surely produce an italic or a boldface appearance that we should resort to the <I> and <b> tags.

Sure, 99.9% of the time <strong> will equal <b>, likewise for <em> and <i>--but that may not remain so forever, and why do it the wrong way when doing it the right way is just as easy?

As the man says, let the context determine when, and in what form, to add emphasis.