Yahoo doesn't use meta tags anymore

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Yahoo doesn't use meta tags anymore

skuba

11:10 pm on Oct 7, 2009 (gmt 0)

searchengineland posted today that Yahoo has long been the only major search engine that supported the meta keywords tag. However, the search engine revealed today that like the other majors, it no longer supports it.

The news came during the Ask The Search Engines session at SMX East in New York today. The search engines were all asked about their support of the tag. Moderator Danny Sullivan noted that only Yahoo provided support of the tag — prompting Cris Pierry, senior director of search at Yahoo, to announce that support actually had been ended unannounced “several” months ago.

What do you guys think?

rustybrick

11:27 am on Oct 8, 2009 (gmt 0)

Yea, so I wrote that in SELand the other day.

I was sitting in the session and Cris from Yahoo was like, oh, btw, we don't use the meta keywords tag anymore either.

Danny and I were like, what?! When did this happen? He said a few months ago. Danny asked him, why didn't you let us know. He shrugged his shoulders.

I then asked, "are you sure?" and he looked at me with the expression, "I would hope I am sure, I am the Senior Director at Yahoo Search." You know that look, you got it once or twice. :)

skuba

4:38 pm on Oct 8, 2009 (gmt 0)

yeah, i don't think any SEO professional will stop optmizing their meta tags.

Hoople

7:02 pm on Oct 14, 2009 (gmt 0)

My one not-for-profit website has a competitor that put the not-for-profit's name in the meta description and meta keywords tags. I let them know in '08.

Still indexed in Yahoo! From HTTP header Last-Modified:·Thu,·30·Oct·2008·07:22:18·GMT

rustybrick

11:34 am on Oct 16, 2009 (gmt 0)

Yahoo lied, they still do index the tag. They just don't use it that much for rankings.

Eurydice

9:00 pm on Oct 17, 2009 (gmt 0)

To say it clearly: Yahoo indexes the meta-keyword tag, but it has the LOWEST value of any factor.

If your page shows up in Yahoo because of the meta-keyword tag, that's a really bad sign. It means nothing else on the page had any value.