Meta tags

>>I know meta tags for Description and Keywords are important for "ordinary" web page SEO

In 1997 they were...

I don't think there's anything wrong with putting metatags in, even if they are really "old skool."

It's not really a question of "old skool", that would imply that it was just something that still works, but is old fashioned.

A description is a good idea, but keywords are a waste of space, and time.

For best results, concentrate on your title, and incoming links -- it's not as simple as that, but that's essentially what i boils down to.

oh, and CSS is not a meta tag (just to be dreadfully perdantic, but also offer a good link..)

Most important is to get an individual title and description for every page. And if you have a possibility to have individual keywords for every page why should they not be in the header?

More reading:

• Header titles optimize AdSense output Despite the flashy title this is also good for general SEO.
• Trick: Textpattern with page dependent header meta description Check if you can use that logic with your system.
• Intuitive Navigation with Tag Clouds ... talking about keywords, tag clouds and tagging. Somewhere in the thread is the description how I solved the meta-keywords issue. Check if your system offers a similar feature.

Don't some of the 2nd tier search engine still rely on meta tags, or has everybody jumped ship these days.

Keywords are content. Produce valuable content with the right keywords and search engines will start to kick in your door.

Include them once in an intelligent matter in the header and then forget about meta keywords.

Read my latest article instead.

With wordpress there are a variety of ways of optimizing your title tags. Steven Spenser has one of htem at his site.

Key words are not entirely useless. On a number of blogs I've been able to fine tune my google ads using them. Apparently the google media bot is old skool.

@Jay: Are you talking about using keywords in general or about the specific <meta name="keywords" content="keyword1, ..." /> part of using keywords?

As Nick said:"(meta) keywords are a waste of space, and time"

I have them only for some Voodoo or black magic reason but it is a widely accepted fact that meta keywords have no value.

I've heard from sources that I trust and respect that older search engines and directories still use meta tags even for keywords.

I've also heard that some newer search engines including Google will decrease a page ranking if there are too many keywords in the meta tag section.

When I use them, I use them sparingly and I attempt to do no harm. Covering my bases for the engines that may need them and keeping the list short so as not to harm my ranking.

Is this the middle of the road or practical approach? (Curious how everyone else deals with the topic)

@brettburn: I think you are right with that middle of the road approach. All my keywords for an article show up at the top of that article. So my number is always four to twelve keywords which is the amount you still can look at.