Meta tags are hidden notes of information that reside in the 'Head' section of all web pages. They give the Search Engine robots that visit your website an idea of the content of the webpage. In earlier days when the search bots were much simpler little programs good meta tags were must if you wanted a web page to rank highly in the search engine results. The main three meta tags that search engines took an interest in were ?Keywords?, ?Title?, and ?Description?. In the early days all one had to do was stuff these tags with your favourite keywords and you were sure to rank very well with the search engines.

However as search bots became more sophisticated 'keyword stuffing' became detected and the search bots actually started to compare the content of the actual page against the meta tags. Keyword stuffing meta tags could now get you penalized by the search engines if your page didn't match up to the key phrases in the meta tags.

Then, lead by the major search engine, Google, link popularity became the central criteria on which search engines judged the relevancy and 'importance' of sites. (This means how many external sites (like someone else's) have a link on their site which leads to your website.) Because of this there was a flood of link farms springing up (now a no no..) and shared linking between sites (You put a link on mine and I'll put a link on yours). Obviously Google and the others inhabit the same Planet that we do and they soon became conscious of what was happening. The search bots advanced yet again and could now make a distinction between one way links and reciprocal links. From here on, reciprocal linking suddenly carried a lot less weight and a lot of sites bounced down the rankings as a consequence.

The most effective links to have without a shadow of a doubt are now One-Way links (Someone else simply links to your site but you have no link to their website..) This really emphasised already established reputable marketing methods such as adding your links to Directories and writing articles. These are just about the most efficient techniques of getting a good ranking in the main Search Engines, and as an effect, more visitors to the website.

So are the Search Engines concerned about Meta Tags nowadays? Yes and no. In my opinion as far as SEO goes Meta tags are nowhere near as vital as they once were. Search Engines had to learn cleverer methods of ranking websites because Web Masters were exploiting the Tags.

So if you're concerned about getting on the first page of the search engines then you have to get plenty quality one way links to the website, did I point out relevance? Maybe that's for another article. For now if your website is about cars then obtain links from vehicle related websites, it could be a steering wheel website if you like, but there should be a better than tenuous connection.

Good Meta tags ARE still very crucial in my view if you need to use Google Adwords. It's accepted that Google still takes into account meta tags in deciding the relevancy of your ad to your page which in turn determines how reasonable your click thrus are.

SO yes it's definitely worth having relevant and accurate meta tags. It's very likely to bring your pay per click price into line with Google and it won't hurt to have them done right anyway. Go and pick approximately four or five relevant key phrases for the webpage, Avoid putting many more in there, Google will not be able to work out the relevance of your page and this will affect the click price.

If you want good meta tags for no charge? then go here: www.helpandinfo.com/meta-tags - It's totally free of charge and you're more then welcome.