Some topics are so shrouded in mystery, they can divide the very SEO experts themselves. Nowhere is this more true than the ubiquitous meta tag. Sure, you’ve written a fantastic meta description, volunteered some of your more important meta keywords (even if you are unsure how much impact the latter will have).

But what next? What other meta tags should you include? Here are just some of the meta tags I see in wide use on the web:

<meta http-equiv=”content-type” content=”text/html; charset=iso-8859-1“>
<meta name=”keywords” content=”meta tags, rogue meta tags, useless meta tags, dangerous meta tags” />
<meta name=”description” content=”The Manchester SEO Blog guide to meta tags, rogue meta tags and downright dangerous ones.” />
<meta http-equiv=”refresh” content=”3;URL=http://manchester-seo-blog.co.uk/”>
<meta name=”robots” content=”would you pass the Turing test?” />
<meta name=”title” content=”Redundant Meta Title” />
<meta name=”rating” content=”unsuitable for homosapiens” />
<meta name=”distribution” content=”global” />
<meta name=”publisher” content=”Rogue Meta Tag Technology Ltd.” />
<meta name=”author” content=”John Doe“>
<meta name=”designer” content=”Jane Doe“>
<meta name=”copyright” content=”Rogue Meta Tag Technology Ltd. All Rights Reserved“>
<meta name=”abstract” content=”A brief overview of some of the more useful, the useless and the downright dangerous meta tags people use on their web pages.“>

In this post, I hope to provide you with a brief overview to the jungle of meta tags.

Useful Meta Tags and Robots

<meta name=”robots” content=”nofollow” />
<meta name=”googlebot” content=”noimageindex” />

Some meta tags can be used to give the robots supplemental information about your page and modify their default behaviour. Meta keywords and description have already been discussed. Robots, is highly useful one which you can direct at all crawlers by specifying “robots” or to a specific crawler such as “googlebot”. You can use directives such as: noindex (do not index), nofollow (do not follow links on this page), noarchive (do not store cached copy of page), noodp (do not use DMOZ description), noydir (do not use the description from Yahoo directory). Not all robots are polite, and at the time of writing, only Googlebot, Yahoo and Bing/MSN/Live crawlers respect these directives. Googlebot also supports: noimageindex (do not index images on page), notranslate (do not offer to translate the page) and unavailable_after (will not recommend for search after a particular date)

Other Useful Meta Tags

There are a small number of other useful meta tags, such as:

<meta http-equiv=”refresh” content=”3;URL=http://manchester-seo-blog.co.uk/”>
<meta http-equiv=”content-language” content=”en-US,fr”>

The first will cause your brower to refresh the page after X seconds (where X is the first number in the content section). You can also specify a URL and use this to redirect your page. But this is the worst kind of redirect, as any SEO expert will say, you are better using a 301 redirect. The second meta tag allows you to specify the language content of the page itself. (see later for multiple language meta tags)

The Redundant Meta Tags

All major Search Engines will ignore meta tags such as: rating, distribution, rating,  author, designer and publisher. You may have your own reasons for including these, but do not expect them to make a difference in your websites rank! Some (such as the ‘rating’ meta tag) were genuinely proposed as a method for allowing webmasters to set the ‘age appropriateness’ of web pages. The difficulty is that without the backing of W3C, it is not standard. Without a set standard, we cannot expect search engines to habitually use meta tags like these. There is also an issue of honesty when reporting on the self :- if you are a webmaster who runs a site, would you wilfully restrict access to your website?

Meta Tags in Multiple Languages

The W3C consortium have proposed a method in which you may specify several different sets of meta tags in different languages within the same page, by using the lang=”" form. For example:

<meta name=”keywords” lang=”en-us” content=”vacation, Greece, sunshine”>
<meta name=”keywords” lang=”en” content=”holiday, Greece, sunshine”>
<meta name=”keywords” lang=”fr” content=”vacances, Gr&egrave;ce, soleil”>
<meta name=”keywords” lang=”ja” content=”空室, ギリシャ, 日照”>

Summary

If in doubt – leave it out! Google and most other search engines will make very good guesses about your page based on the content itself. If you are not sure how to use the meta tag, it is best not to! You may find interesting ways of shooting yourself in the foot by asking search engines to not index or cache your page. It is always better to err on the side of caution, and (as ever) look to W3C as a guide.

Google have announced the launch of a government censorship tool that shows requests made by the world governments to remove websites and content. The tool also shows any freedom of information requests made for personal user data.

Google made the announcement while delivering a poignant message to the governments of the world – that freedom of opinion and expression are not liberties to be trifled with. Quoting article 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, Google warns of the alarming growth of censorship on the Web:

…”‘everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.’ Written in 1948, the principle applies aptly to today’s Internet — one of the most important means of free expression in the world. Yet government censorship of the web is growing rapidly: from the outright blocking and filtering of sites, to court orders limiting access to information and legislation forcing companies to self-censor content.”

Here at the Manchester SEO blog, we are delighted at the move, and wanted to take this opportunity to openly thank Google for their protective gaze. Recent revelations over our MPs expenses have demonstrated just how unfit our leaders are to police themselves. At the very least, this tool will prove a highly effective safeguard against further abuses of power. With the controversial passing of the UK’s Digital Economy Bill, the timing couldn’t have been better.

The Manchester SEO Blog is currently running a series of anti-censorship tutorials explaining how proxies and Google’s DNS might be used to get around web censorship.

Above all, this message reminds us that intellect will always triumph over tyranny. I would not trust our government to decide what search results I see. But if Google stood for parliament, I would vote for them.

One question I get asked quite often, usually comes in the form of the statement : “I’ve found company X offering to do Y-thousand back links over Z weeks for some fixed amount of money” (adjust variables as necessary!).  You might think such information helps you assess the value of such a service, but it does not.  Today I will be asking : just how effective are link buying tactics?  What are the potential risks?  And how do these compare with links won for good quality content?

Well, it really depends on who is acquiring the links for you. Unless you know for sure how and where they plan to obtain these links, there is always a degree of risk to your site and domain.

What Are The Risks of Link Buying?

Google is very smart, and is aware of these tactics.  In the worst case scenario, your link building company has no ethics and will use link farming and spam techniques to obtain the sheer volume of links for you. If Google notices this sudden influx of poor quality links, your domain name may be penalised, impairing it’s ability to rank – or worse – may actually be blacklisted altogether.

How Can I Judge The Quality of Paid Back Links?

When I used to work for Tescos, one of their slogans was: ‘would you buy it?’ – do you feel the standard of service and presentation of the product meets your own personal standards? I like to think the same is true of the Web : ‘would you click it?’. If these links come from a site which someone may find helpful, and the links contribute to the usefulness and structure of the Web, then you have nothing to worry about.  If however, the referring sites include nonsensical gibberish, repetition of keywords and features links that appear to be going around in circles, then be afraid! Be very, very afraid!

The page rank of the referring page is also another important indicator. Google will not assign a page rank at all if it suspects foul play is afoot. If the referring page has a Google page rank other than zero, you are probably quite safe. This is why I often advise people to go for a smaller number of higher PR links, rather than sheer volume alone. There is significantly less risk, and potentially more for you to gain!

Advantages of Buying Links vs. Quality Content Linkbaiting

Recent updates to Google’s algorithm, mean that more weighting is given to relevance and quality of content that surrounds the link. I believe this is one fundamental cornerstone that has ushered in the current era of SEO blogging. If the link is surrounded by well written, rich and informative text content, you will find the link does several times more for you than a series of generic business directory listings. Not only this – but the traffic it conducts is likely to stay longer, be more interested in the topics you discuss and will improve the overall health of our SEO itself.

The (Current) Verdict?

In a perfect world, I think Google would like everyone to keep their links very context-relevant, and would like to encourage all users to freely contribute as much information as they possibly can to the Web. But in reality, not everyone has time to get very involved in generating rich content – particularly if you have a business to run! Be sure you have an idea what type of links your link broker will build.  Go for quality not quantity - 5 good back links will do more for you than 50 generic ones, do not be swayed by sheer volume alone!  And – as always – be very cautious.

In the fantastic Star Trek Voyager series, a Borg designated Seven of Nine is ‘rescued’ and disconnected from the collective. This causes her great distress, as the voices in her head suddenly fall silent.

This weekend I think I understand how this feels. Most good SEO news sources are corporate blogs, causing a sort of giant blogging vacuum to open up once the weekend rolls around. Not being one to disappoint, I realise that this void might actually represent an opportunity in disguise.

Content Marketing is About Giving Your Audience What They Want

SEO never sleeps, takes a break or any kind of holiday. This is doubly true of content marketing. The information blogs and websites contain might be better thought of in the more traditional supply and demand model – the more writers for a topic, the less readers per writer there will be and (therefore) the more difficult it is likely to prove to find your niche. Perhaps there are very good reasons for choosing the timing of your blog posts?

Content Marketing is About Timing

In many ways, the key to SEO content marketing lies in predicting the future. Foreseeing upcoming trends and identifying the need for particular articles before others have a chance to supply them, enabling you to manoeuvre yourself into a prime position ready for when the readers come. Getting there first is easier when you only have a couple of competitors to worry about.  Once you have the top spot, it will become increasingly difficult for newcomers to challenge your position.

One Case Study

On another site I run, I endeavour to provide the solutions to a popular Lucasarts game series called the Tales of Monkey Island before anyone else. By making the solutions available on the day of the games release, not only does this make it easier for me to get into the top position in Google for phrases I suspect people will be searching for, but I actually generate traffic I would have missed if I had released exactly the same article only a couple of days later.

The graph below shows the traffic generated for these solutions, shortly after the release of the latest episode on the Friday the 30th of October 2009.  The shaded area indicates extra traffic that only the speedy writer can achieve.  If the solutions were published only a few days after this, the traffic would go to someone else.

Traffic For Game Solutions After Launch on the 30th October 2009

When it Pays to be Different

In a nutshell, it pays to be different.  Whatever you can contribute that others will struggle with, is something you can turn into a great traffic source.  Being the first to provide will ensure others are constantly playing catch-up and will be lucky to scrape second place.  Going with the crowd is likely to get your voice lost amongst other  similar messages.  But if you jump to the left while everyone is jumping  right, someone is bound to stop and take notice!

The Internet is all about freedom.  Freedom is the prerequisite of choice, and in the marketplace this means competition. Let’s suppose you were shopping for beans and couldn’t find the budget brand you usually buy, you would probably pick up Heinz on your way out just to avoid making a second trek to the shops! You set aside the fact that price has gone up because choice went down.  On the web, things work quite differently … I just click back on my browser and do another search!

In many respects, Google is both a consumer and a service – it provides users with it’s top choices for their search phrase and with only 10 spaces on that first page, it had better be damn sure it picks only the very best! I often find people can become overly focused on one particular phrase which is general and quite competitive. My message tonight for people who are finding it hard to rank for a particular phrase is simple :- what makes you think your website deserves to be on Google’s first page?

Think of Neo running the ‘Jump Program’, or Yoda lifting that X-Wing from the swamps of the Dagobah system; it doesn’t matter how far that other building is, or how big the X-Wing ship is … or even how many competitors you have! If your website is the most informative, most comprehensive or most useful in some way, then it would be in Googles’ own interest to place you first. Competition is simply irrelevant when you know your strengths and are able to capitalise on them!

Could you offer the widest selection of products in that market? Perhaps you could include the most detailed background information, content or advice about them? What role does social networking play to your business and products? For each great gizmo, there is usually some sort of group that grows around it. What do you need to do, to be able to tap into this potential source of customers? If you are still struggling to rank for this tough phrase, remember – Google likes variety. If you find yourself bobbing below the surface of that golden first page, simply ask yourself : ‘what can I offer that Google has missed?’ If you can find even one new angle on a well-trodden subject, then there might just be a spot on that first page for you!

In a nutshell, cracking open your niche in competitive word-markets is all about doing what you do best! Customers are king and on the Internet this is doubly so! Simply put yourself in your visitors shoes and ask yourself what could be better?

It’s amazing how often I see people destroy the quality of grammar in their web pages, by keyword stuffing sentences in the hope this will improve visibility. In this issue of the Manchester SEO blog, I will be revealing how Google reads your text, why keyword stuffing can become a false economy, and outlining the role grammar plays in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

It is widely accepted that Google is able to identify which language a particular document is written in, weed out pages of spammy, nonsensical gibberish and will even be able to tell if the text from the current page is duplicated from a page it has read previously. By all accounts, you might say Google meets the criteria for being able to read.

So How Does Google Read Text?

Believe it or not, the basic principle is actually quite simple. By applying word n-grams (see also), Google is able to predict the next most statistically likely word in any given sequence, based on patterns it has become familiar with. By keeping giant arrays of n-grams which keep score of the most common sequences of words, Google is able to track trends in the use of the language itself and is able to measure how closely the patterns of words in your text match those that are widely used. It will know something is amiss when it finds extremely rare sequences occurring regularly throughout your document. Using this method, it is able to quantify how standard your use of language is and therefore (to some degree) how grammatically correct it is. The beauty of this method is that Google’s working language model will adapt as human languages evolve. It will always be aware of the contemporary trends, new slang terms and phrases (and how to use them in a sentence!). Indeed it will be learning in a very similar manner as a child would, and although Google may be a passive user and librarian of the Internet, I would say (in terms of language acquisition), it comes half way to solving the Turing Test:

The Turing Test

A human judge engages in a natural language conversation with one human and one machine, each of which tries to appear human. All participants are placed in isolated locations. If the judge cannot reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine is said to have passed the test.

Google Labs have taken this to the logical extreme, demonstrating the power of billions of acquired web pages from around the world, manifesting itself in a tool that will identify the most likely language for an arbitrary block of text input:

The Impact of Language and Grammar on SEO

Obviously there is more to it than this, but the combined effect of employing this method with several others means you will be rewarded for using proper English. While it may be helpful to feature important words and phrases, this must be balanced against the readability and language of your document for the best results!

‘Content is king’ is an addage you will probably have heard more than a few times if you have been trying to get into the murky world of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).  While this is not untrue, I feel it loses sight of the single most important part of your site…your visitors!

I like to think of it this way – it doesn’t matter if you have 1 competitor, or 100 billion, if your website is the most informative, helpful and useful site  for the subject matter, then it would be in Google’s own interest to place you first! The content itself is vital, but is itself only a means to an end. By making this content easily readable and making the site accessible the content itself will do more for you.

Usability may not seem like an SEO issue or connected with rankings, but if you’re visitors are not able to find what they want they will leave sooner, Google will see your average time on site decrease, and you will be given poorer listings.   By having the most eye-catching links and icons placed correctly with the most appropriate text, your visitors will click deeper, stay longer and read more from your site, all of which will have a positive long-term impact on your visibility.

Getting Inside the Mindset of Your Visitors & Target Audience

Google Analytics

Getting inside the mindset of your visitor is the tricky part of SEO. Because you work closely with your site regularly, it gets difficult to see the wood for the trees! The true acid test for usability is how a complete stranger behaves, and by watching your visitors closely with great tools like Google Analytics, you will be able to identify which pages are popular and why.  Looking over the keywords people find you for can give clues as to what your visitors want, and will help you better tailor your message to your audience.

I like to think of traffic flow like water – you can passively influence the stream, but ultimately even a substance as hard as rock will be carved by the water over time. Google Analytics has one feature that few other tools do – by clicking content » overlay from the left menu in the dashboard, Analytics will display your site, and include it’s own annotations, indicating what percentage of traffic clicked each link from this page, helping you visibly see the path of your traffic flow and visitors. This will help highlight any usability issue, or patterns that you might see emerging.