150 meta keywords ????????

Carpetpaul said: "I was checking my site against one of these optimization tools on the web, it advised something like 28 keywords ------in which case why do sites like phpnuke.org use a full 150 keywords ????? Most of their keywords are repeated to include the capitalized and lower case version of the word, is this necessary --- are searches case sensitive ??????? Cheers - Paul"

edwin said: "you can use 150, but don't repeat any of the words. case makes no difference at all. you could just use one sentence that best describes your page. if it matches your title, all the better."

Darksat said: "You can repeat some words and phrases 2-3 times, 5 times if its a mix of singular and plurals, check the density of your competitors and attempt to go for around the same, but with a diferent order."

Carpetpaul said: "...but obviously the keywords only count if the search engines can verify that you are also using the same words in the text which you display on that page, in which case, there's no point in me putting 'garden' if I cannot work this word into the text on my page (even though I'd like the surfers that type in that word) I was guided by a site that had tested my meta and was suggesting that I was using too many keywords (about 29), so I reduced the ones that were not as important, and modified the text that displays on my page so that it contained a higher percentage of those words (compared to other words not contained in the meta keywords) Do I presume that by keeping your text brief, and closely based around your keywords that you can achieve a higher density of those keywords, and therefore score a little higher ? It begs the question.... why is one of my other pages (which contains no meta whatsoever) and has a large amount of text relating to my favourite search term actually coming up in the searches at a higher position than the home page that I have tried to optimise ? Perhaps a larger quantity of quality text based closely to the search terms would help me more that carefull meta keywords and brief high density text ?"

edwin said: "google doesn't pay attention to meta keywords. the page has greater "keyword density". all things being equal, something on-page like keyword density is going to count much higher than something like meta keywords. the two major factors in ranking pages are anchor text and the actual on-page content. and don't try to optimize one page for more than one phrase. thats the biggest mistake everyone makes. just make a page for every phrase you want to target."

Carpetpaul said: "I think I understand what you mean, here is a list of my likely search terms Cane Furniture Cane Furniture Lancashire Wicker 3 piece suite Rattan suite Conservatory but associated words would be : "garden, wooden, upvc, conservatory, windows, blinds, patio, barbeque, pond, house, home improvement, extension sunlounge, shed swimming pool, " I'd like to write more extensivly to take in the list of associated words, as in google searches it's picking up on the text from within the pages, even when that text is not in my meta keywords. I can write a really nice article, somewhere lower down my home page, that contains all of these associated words, which might help me to be in the results if someone is typing in these words. To use an example, if I were to mention the words extension, home improvement, upvc etc, I'd like to have a chance to grab those customers (before they've had their conservatory's built) but I don't actually sell upvc, conervatory's, nor do I offer building work - is it worth me including text in this way ? Is there any harm in mentioning these related words to attract a wider audience ?"

Carpetpaul said: "Actually, reading your previous reply again, more babble about loosely related things equals a lesser keyword density, and therefore a worse chance of a good result on my few key search terms think I've answered my own question ! Cheers - Paul --have a look on my home page, it's reasonably straight to the point with as little babble as I could manage, think I'll leave extra details for other pages--"

edwin said: "no harm at all. in fact, having a broad website that goes deep and wide on a subject is good for both the search engines and users. if you know a lot about a subject, it gives you a great advantage on the web. anything you can do to add a little info, the history of something etc, can't hurt. if the word has light competition, just mentioning many words will help a lot. just write complete sentences. people always try to write spammy type keyword sentences and you shouldn't. just write diverse paragraphs that mention the main points of subjects. google is getting better at semantics, so the surrounding text helps them decide what a page is all about."

Darksat said: "actually google, yahoo etc put a slight weight on meta discritopn tag content. you can also put keywords in your image alt tags as long as you dont over do it."