The large majority of search engines do not use Meta Tags as part of their ranking algorithm. Some will claim Google uses Meta tags in its algorithm. This is entirely untrue.
Google, however, will use a meta description tag if it is unable to discern a description for a webpage on its own (if the page has no text and no description in the open directory [dmoz] it is likely Google will use the meta description tag in its SERPs). Please note that it is only using this description in its SERPs, not its algorithm.
Should you use Meta Tags in your site? Yes. They do have some affect in some search engines and even though that effect is almost zero it is still more then zero so is worth the time.
How much time should I spend on my Meta Tags? Ten minutes. Write a nice concise description of your page and throw in a sampling of keywords (which you should have handy if you’ve optimized your pages properly). You should spend no more time then this on them. Use your time to promote your site and get quality inbound links.
How many keywords should I use? As many as you want. If you start to think you may have too many, you probably do. This means you need to divide your page into subpages with each one taking its own topic.
Offpage opitimiztion is the process of building up link popularity through getting inbound links. Some places to get links from are…
Web Directories – Submit to both paid and free directories.
Reciprocal Links – Find websites that offer content that is related then ask to exchange links with that site.
Articles – Write articles about products or services offered on the website and submit the articles to various article publishing sites on the web. Be sure to include a link to the product or service on your site.
Press Releases (PR) – Similar to writing articles. Press releases can be submitted to places like PRweb and PRleap. They then can be picked up by other news sites including Google news and Yahoo.
The search engines don’t care about what server side technology you use. All they see is the (x)HTML your server side code generates. To see what they see simply load your page in your favorite web browser and then view the source. What you see is exactly what they see.
I really like analysis of the tag and how you laid out your methodology. Very clean, direct, and true.
Wal-Mart gets away with what it gets away with because of its authority; and you were quick to address that fact. However, much more eloquently than myself, you also addressed that there is a relevance between keyword strength and keyword placement and that efforts at brand recognition in the tag can work against organic placement. It’s a critical element (the tag) that so many hum and buzz about just because *some* successful sites seem to break all of the ‘common sense rules’ that normal visibility tactics successfully follow. Huge, dominant sites are sometimes an exception to the rule, not the standard of it.
I mean, really, think about it: It goes against relative common sense to title a book “Don’t Read This Book, Whatever You Do!” but, don’t you wish *you’d* thought of it first? And, aren’t you glad that everyone else didn’t change their book’s name to the same thing?
