max number of keywords ?

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Author: flwLocation: U.S.A. PostPosted: Sun Jan 19, 2003 12:02 am    Post subject: max number of keywords ?
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When SFDC was down today I was looking at the keywords used on the index page and it seemed alot. Is there any general practical limit on the max. number of keywords the net spiders from search engines will pickup before the keywords are ignored?

Author: drivleLocation: c/o the gutter PostPosted: Sun Jan 19, 2003 12:15 am    Post subject:
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I believe this is standard practice :

Site's title: up to 100 characters long.

Site's description : up to 200 characters long.

Site's keywords : up to 1000 characters (usually less than 400)..

Author: flwLocation: U.S.A. PostPosted: Sun Jan 19, 2003 12:20 am    Post subject:
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Quote:
Site's keywords : up to 1000 characters (usually less than 400)..


Would this be true for typical search engine spiders? I'm looking from the search engines spider view not html/etc...

i.e. Just because I can put 400 in, it doesn't help if the spiders generally ignore any more than 40.

Author: drivleLocation: c/o the gutter PostPosted: Sun Jan 19, 2003 12:39 am    Post subject:
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Remember that's 400 characters, not words.

Unless you are seriously trying to minimise on byte size, I don't suppose it really matters.

I'm sure that different spiders use different tactics, so as long as you try to get the important keywords at the top of the list, you'll be ok.

(Meaning that the spiders will parse the list 'left to right' then lose interest at the less important words)

Author: drivleLocation: c/o the gutter PostPosted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 12:26 pm    Post subject:
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Just got an response from someone in the know.
He said :

At the last check, only one SE gave weighting to metatag keywords, and
relatively few even read them anymore.

The aspects that have impact on search engine performance are:

1. Word frequency
2. Word position (relative to the top of the page code).
3. Inward linking (especially Google).

Author: ShaolinTigerLocation: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia PostPosted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 12:31 pm    Post subject:
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drivle wrote:

1. Word frequency
2. Word position (relative to the top of the page code).
3. Inward linking (especially Google).


This is not true, there is no blanket ruling.

Each engine works slightly differently.

Currently <title> is given the most weight, along with anchor text and word frequency for Google at least.

The rest I don't know as they are rather un-important compared to Google Smile

There is one search engine that tests everything (word frequency, <title> length, meta tags...etc) can't remember what is it though..

I'll have a look.

There are the general rules though:

Title
<title>your title</title>
Place this in the head part of your page. This tag correspond to the name you want to give to your site. For example "Security Forums". Some search engines will use this name to display their result. Do not use more than 60-70 characters.

Description
<meta name="description" content="your description">
This tag is used to provide a little description of your site to search engines. It's important that you use the most precise words that describe your site because search engines will seek in that description for their result. Also you can use "Short Description" with 23 words (max.25), "Normal Description" 151 letters (max.160) and "Long Description" with 228 letters (max.350) or 35 words (max.35).

Keywords
<meta name="keywords" content="security,forums,hacking,computers">
These keywords are very important for search engines. Its the first thing that search engines look for. The first sites displayed in a search engine result are site with keywords. If you do not have this meta in your page You will never be displayed first in a search engine result. Do not use more than 1,024 characters.

Some tools here:

http://www.smartwebby.com/website_promotion/web_site_optimization.asp

http://www.northernwebs.com/set/spider_view_da.html

Ok I found the one I was thinking of:

http://www.scrubtheweb.com

It's pretty good.

Results for us here.

Author: GiroLocation: England PostPosted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 1:52 pm    Post subject:
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Google doesnt use description tags but they should be included in your page. And to many keywords might get picked up as spam by Google. I think Google is the only engine to optimize for really.

Last edited by Giro on Tue Jan 21, 2003 2:17 pm; edited 1 time in total

Author: ShaolinTigerLocation: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia PostPosted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 1:56 pm    Post subject:
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Ol Man wrote:
Google doesnt use description tags, And to many keywords might get picked up as spam by Google. I think Google is the only engine to optimize for really.


Who said it did exactly?

Author: GiroLocation: England PostPosted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 1:58 pm    Post subject:
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Just thought id point it out.

Author: ShaolinTigerLocation: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia PostPosted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 2:01 pm    Post subject:
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Yeh well I think it's best to optimise for google but add things for them all aswell.

<--comments--> good <title> good <h1> good keywords.

I do know of some people that actually have different versions of the site based on user agent for different spiders/web-bots.

I think that's going too far LOL.

From personal experience though a good title with a decent PR always comes top on google.

Author: GiroLocation: England PostPosted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 2:28 pm    Post subject:
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Sorry the way i put it sounded if they dont matter they do i have edited my original post, All tags matter. I agree doorway pages are a bit much and they can be considered as spam. Title and domain name are very important and being in Dmoz gives PR a boost to Very Happy

Author: EpikalLocation: United States PostPosted: Fri Feb 14, 2003 6:49 am    Post subject:
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this may answer some of your questions.. www.spider-food.net



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