One thing that is very puzzling to both expert and novice SEO marketers alike is the fact that adding meta-tags to a site may not always work. This is one of the big mysteries when it comes to dealing with search engine algorithms.

The main problem is that there are really two types of search engines. There are internal search engines and public search engines. They operate differently and search for different criteria when it comes to determining page rankings, which can make the life of a SEO expert difficult.

The truth is that the addition of meta-tags to the site seems to work best for the internal search engines. These search engines sift through the pages or products on your site and help narrow down the search results to the most relevant ones. Unfortunately, a public search engine such as Google performs a little differently. The database of Google for instance contains basically every page on the web and all of them contain keyword-maximized meta-tags that work in the vendor's interest, not Google's. For this reason it is a bit in question whether or not Google works with meta-tags at all. This is because the website owner usually works at cross interests with Google – manipulated keywords in the meta-tag so that they can draw visitors to their site. Google, on the other hand, is more concerned with providing visitors with an accurate library. It is only concerned with showing relevant pages and the web master would like his or her pages to be show whether they are relevant or not.

This is why changing meta-tags or adding them is not necessarily a rock solid SEO solution for increasing your popularity with the search engines and especially the larger ones like Google that may not be interested in meta-tags at all.