Search Engine Optimizer's often have two different views when it comes to meta tags. One this is unanimous meta tags have definitely been devalued for use in most major search engines but you will find they are still being used as the description often times when your site is listed in the search results.
Meta tags were started back in the early 90's when the internet was just getting it's brand new legs and they were used to help the search engines organize the growing number of web pages. This was an easy way to make your site indexed and listed high. Soon after unethical webmasters started to abuse the meta tag by either spamming the page full of so many keywords or sometimes even made different websites appear in the results for a completely different keyword. Gambling sites would stuff their meta tags with more commonly used phrases in order to bring their sites to the first page and trick the search engine and moreover the user.
Now obviously, most search engines have discontinued the use of meta tags for organizing their search engines, algorithms have become much more technologically advanced and they use a number of other methods to index and sort. The big question is if they are no longer viewed as a helpful tag, why do some SEO's still use them.
Meta tags a a multitude of different uses and names, so which ones do you use? There are four that I often find myself using when I am optimizing a site. They are as follows:
Meta Robots: This tag is still widely supported and it simply tells the search bots to either follow the url through or you can ask them not to index certain parts of your site for aspects that may not be relevant to your actual site.
Meta Description: My favorite tag, this is your first impression, if you don't have this tag search engines will just tag clips of your index page including the keyword that was being searched for by the surfer. First impressions often is the difference between a sale or no sale.
Meta Keywords: A controversial meta tag, some use it, some don't. I still thinks it holds a bit of value if you keep it simple. Don't add more than 20 or so keywords, and I think it does increase your on page keyword density.
Meta Content Type: This is recommended because you may find that if you do not have this tag it could cause display problems
Now, well most search engines do not use the meta tags as they did in the early nineties, but as I explained you can still use them for a variety of other uses. There of course are a number of opinions on this matter, some SEO firms are strong believers in the meta tag and other firms are strongly against it.
In conclusion, my opinion is that meta tags can be used for a number of alternative reasons now and still offer you a great place to sell your stuff. I always will recommend the use of at least a small number of Meta Tags, and if used correctly will greatly improve your chances of higher sales & higher rankings.
