# Spaces or No Spaces... that is the question



## Ken Styles (Mar 16, 2006)

In regards to Meta tag key words:

Is it better to use spaces or not?

I read somewhere that the crawlers are skipping key words if there is a space....yet I see websites with very high Google rankings using spaces. 

For example:

custom shirts, t-shirts, funny shirts,

vs.

custom shirts,t-shirts,funnyshirts,

Does anyone have any info on this?

Thanks folks!


----------



## T-BOT (Jul 24, 2006)

i dont think it matters.

keep it on one line, the entire tag. 
line breaks, 2x spaces and stuff like that it may cause confusion.


----------



## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

I agree with Lucy, I don't think it matters that much. The bots these days are smart enough to figure it out either way.


----------



## Twinge (Apr 26, 2005)

In addition, meta tags have _very little_ to do with how high a site actually ranks anymore. So what you see on a high ranking site really isn't that strong of an indicator overall; I think Google actually ignores Meta tags entirely now, but they should still be included for other engines.

That said, I agree that the space should not matter.


----------



## MotoskinGraphix (Apr 28, 2006)

Actually I think its no spaces and two or three word phrases should be joined no with a space but an underline dash. examp. vinyl_graphics,decals,roll_call_logos

I didnt do the underline dashes and sometimes my two word phrases are out of sinc on optomizers.

I think this info came from Web CEO software.


----------



## Twinge (Apr 26, 2005)

Yahoo is the only one of the major 3 that seems to care about meta keywords very much, and the one example I could find from Yahoo itself had spaces and no underscores: "dogs, cats, bird cages, pets, guinea pigs".


----------



## MotoskinGraphix (Apr 28, 2006)

Twinge said:


> Yahoo is the only one of the major 3 that seems to care about meta keywords very much, and the one example I could find from Yahoo itself had spaces and no underscores: "dogs, cats, bird cages, pets, guinea pigs".


Yep...those are the major three but I read the other day that a full 25% of internet searches take place on smaller engines. Also the fact that Yahoo is listed is more than enough reason to include them in a sites SEO.


----------



## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> Yep...those are the major three but I read the other day that a full 25% of internet searches take place on smaller engines


That seems like a pretty high percentage. For example, this study from August shows that over 90% of the internet searches are done on the big 3 indexes (Google/Yahoo/MSN):
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2156431

(AOL's 5.9% is actually Google since Google power's AOL search).

Either way, including meta tags doesn't take but a half a second, so there's no reason not to include them. Whether you give them spaces or not won't effect you too much as long as they are there.

Once the big 3 search indexes are covered, the other search portals will be covered as well since they use similar search ranking methods.


----------



## Twinge (Apr 26, 2005)

MotoskinGraphix said:


> Yep...those are the major three but I read the other day that a full 25% of internet searches take place on smaller engines. Also the fact that Yahoo is listed is more than enough reason to include them in a sites SEO.


Looks like it's more like ~9-11% of searches are outside the top 3 (because AOL uses Google search, which would add another ~6% if it was different). Of course, even if there were only 5% of used engines that used meta keywords it'd still be worth it most likely. My main point was that Yahoo is the most important contender as far as meta keywords go, and that (what I posted above) APPEARS to be how they suggest you list them.


----------



## MotoskinGraphix (Apr 28, 2006)

I guess after the again non pro factoids and different articles related too...It might be well worth the simple effort. I just read what I read and we all know how the media reports. I couldnt tell you about specifics of international searches etc or parameters they go by. If I am wrong there is no disconnect in that. I love you guys but for first time website builders there may be some relevance in keywords and meta tags, obviously for Yahoo. The crazy thing is we dont know what the next set of parameters could be.


----------



## Twinge (Apr 26, 2005)

Moto: You've got to read the whole post, man =) As I said above, I agree that it certainly is worthwhile to add meta keywords; it's just not _that_ important.


----------



## MotoskinGraphix (Apr 28, 2006)

Twinge said:


> Moto: You've got to read the whole post, man =) As I said above, I agree that it certainly is worthwhile to add meta keywords; it's just not _that_ important.


Yeah I know...been completely outa sorts lately. My focus is redirected completely. My PDR business, Graphic business, T-shirt endeavor, Building a Website for another business and getting into the promotions game as well as planning the next quarters worth of events...and Christmas. Everything is good just gotta get back to my cheery self.


----------



## kenfuji (Sep 15, 2006)

adding meta's on you site doesn't hurt since yahoo engine uses it. how much of it is used remains to be seen.

for most of my sites i just add a simple list of keywords and meta discription. it only takes a few minutes to do and for the key words all you do is go to overture.com and find the popular key words in the keyword generator for the previous month.


----------

