META tags- be sure to put them in!

[jmestep]

Just for general info. I put links in Google base and site map for a new site where we hadn't put any META stuff in yet. When I noticed what Google was displaying in results, I rushed back and put META into the products in bulk by doing an update in SQL Server to take the first 200 chars of the description1, tried to strip out some of the embedded html and wrapped in <META, etc.
Here is a sample of what Google is picking up now:
First link is a product that they indexed before I did the META
Second link is a category page with no META yet
Third link is where I put the META in using the method above- we'll fine tune later.

meta.gif

[Mark Harris]

Wow, that's quite an impressive difference! So i guess that answers the question of "do search engines use meta tags". I assume this would also increase the relevance of your result in searches too.

[Logan Rhodehamel]

I want to cross-reference this other thread about MEAT tags, where I provide some code that might speed up the process of getting these tags in. viewtopic.php?f=42&t=7489