Advantages and disadvantages of Meta tags: including ways to overcome the disadvantages

 

Meta tags are commonly known to empower a website and increase visibility for search engines. Our previous post discussed the definition of meta-tags, examples and analysis and it can be found at https://primemerchant.blogspot.com/2022/07/understanding-meta-tags-definition-meta.html. Today's post will analyse the common advantages and disadvantages of meta tags and suggest potential solutions to overcome the disadvantages. The relevant meta tags for search engine optimization are Meta keyword tags, Meta description tag and Meta robots’ tags (Study, 2022).

  Meta keyword tag:

The syntax for a meta keyword tag can be represented by the following:  <meta name=” keywords” content=keyword1, keyword2, keyword3”>

Advantages of using the meta keywords tag:

•   Could have a significant impact on lesser-known search engines
•  In Yahoo search results can show misspellings list words related to your web page if a misspelling word list had been used on the web page (BrightEdge, 2022)

Disadvantages of using the meta keywords tag:

•  Competitor can see the keywords used to empower a web page and they can use that into their own benefit.
• search engine interprets the search differently therefore the search may retrieve inappropriate websites
• Difficult to limit searches

 Meta description tags:

Meta description tag look: <meta name=” description” content=” Page content description here.”>

Advantages of using the meta description tag:

•  Search engines that are not popular use the meta tags description and an SEO advantage can be achieved by using the meta description tag.
•   Various search engines would display the description tag especially if the keyword searched for it is included into the tag. A popular believe is that a well written description tag displayed on the search result could attract searcher to the page (Sharma, 2022).

Disadvantages of using the meta description tag:

•  often snippets are better at providing exactly what searchers are looking for than page summaries, especially if the page has a lot of content.
•  Time spent working on meta description tags is time taken away from working on page content, which is more important.

     Meta robots tag:

This type of tag it is usually used to prevent specific search engine actions mainly preventing the search engines from accessing a particular page and or follow it. A syntax for these two operations could be: <meta name=” robots” content=” noindex”>, <meta name=” robots” content=” noindex, nofollow”>

Advantages of using the meta robot’s tag:

• Limited privacy. Meta robots’ tags could make a web page invisible for searches
• a web page in a beta state could still be inspected by relevant individuals and the robots’ meta tags will keep the traffic blocked until the web page it is ready

Disadvantages of using the meta description tag:

• no index tags could create confusion between which robots they will have to block, having difficulties understanding if they must block all robots or just those used by search engines.
•  Using wrong robots’ meta tags could lead to a violation of website copyrights therefore it could have seriously legal consequences (Fontane, 2020).

Meta tags best practices:

It is commonly known that meta tags could improve publicity for a web page however, meta tags can create complications having the opposite results or legal repercussions. There are ways that could help preventing this complications known as best practices.

Meta description tags should include keywords relevant to the site content. The keywords used in description should duplicate the way the users speak and they should be used into a natural way. For an increased efficiency they require a length of 150-165 characters. A website should not include multiple meta tags or meta tags that contradict each other (WorkshopDigital, 2020). It is advisable the use of multiple value inside the meta tag. Lastly, it is a popular suggestion that the use of lowercase  parameter improves the code readability (Crowe, 2020).

References

BrightEdge, 2022. Are HTML Meta Tags Important?. [online] BrightEdge. Available at: <https://www.brightedge.com/glossary/are-meta-tags-important#:~:text=Meta%20tags%20are%20important%20because,of%20a%20solid%20SEO%20strategy.> [Accessed 27 July 2022].

Crowe, 2020. Best Practices for Setting Up Meta Robots Tags & Robots.txt. [online] Search Engine Journal. Available at: <https://www.searchenginejournal.com/technical-seo/meta-robots-tags-robots-txt/#close> [Accessed 27 July 2022].

Fontané, 2022. Full List of Meta Tags, Why They Matter for SEO & How to Write Them. [online] Blog.hubspot.com. Available at: <https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/meta-tags> [Accessed 27 July 2022].

Sharma, 2022. Meta Tags in 2022: Why are They Important in SEO?. [online] Advanced Web Ranking Blog. Available at: <https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/meta-tags-important-in-seo/> [Accessed 27 July 2022].

Study, 2022. [online] study.com. Available at: <https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-a-meta-tag-definition-examples-quiz.html> [Accessed 27 July 2022].

WorkshopDigital, 2020. Meta Description Common Problems and Best… | Workshop Digital. [online] Workshop Digital. Available at: <https://www.workshopdigital.com/blog/meta-descriptions-common-problems-and-best-practices/> [Accessed 27 July 2022].