#out of laziness and out of not tag spamming even though it's relevant | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

and-then-theres-that · 5 years

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Tumblr Community Guidelines

Since everyone is freaking out and obviously only wanting to read what they want to see, OR too lazy to actually click a link:

These go into effect on the 17th.

Community Guidelines

Please note: these new Community Guidelines will not go into effect until 2018-12-17

As a global platform for creativity and self-expression, Tumblr is deeply committed to supporting and protecting freedom of speech. At the same time, we draw lines around a few narrowly defined but deeply important categories of content and behavior that jeopardize our users, threaten our infrastructure, and damage our community.

What Tumblr is for:

Tumblr celebrates creativity. We want you to express yourself freely and use Tumblr to reflect who you are, and what you love, think, and stand for.

What Tumblr is not for:

Terrorism. We don't tolerate content that promotes, encourages, or incites acts of terrorism. That includes content which supports or celebrates terrorist organizations, their leaders, or associated violent activities.

Hate Speech. Don't encourage violence or hatred. Don't post content for the purpose of promoting or inciting the hatred of, or dehumanizing, individuals or groups based on race, ethnic or national origin, religion, gender, gender identity, age, veteran status, sexual orientation, disability or disease. If you encounter content that violates our hate speech policies, please report it.

Keep in mind that a post might be mean, tasteless, or offensive without necessarily encouraging violence or hatred. In cases like that, you can always block the person who made the post—or, if you're up for it, you can express your concerns to them directly, or use Tumblr to speak up, challenge ideas, raise awareness or generate discussion and debate.

(I would imagine blasting Nazi propaganda, threatening harm to people because they’re different or any of the commentary over a cop at Pride that remotely suggests they should be harmed, would count)

Harm to Minors. Be thoughtful when posting anything involving a minor. Don't post or solicit anything relating to minors that is sexually suggestive or violent. Don't bully minors, even if you are one. Being a teenager is complicated enough without the anxiety, sadness, and isolation caused by bullying.

(Just guessing here, but I imagine a nice warning about the context of a story being dangerous or involving a minor for the sake of Triggering will suffice. If not, I’m sure you can ask someone!)

Promotion or Glorification of Self-Harm. Don't post content that actively promotes or glorifies self-harm. This includes content that urges or encourages others to: cut or injure themselves; embrace anorexia, bulimia, or other eating disorders; or commit suicide rather than, e.g., seeking counseling or treatment, or joining together in supportive conversation with those suffering or recovering from depression or other conditions. Dialogue about these behaviors is incredibly important and online communities can be extraordinarily helpful to people struggling with these difficult conditions. We aim for Tumblr to be a place that facilitates awareness, support and recovery, and we will remove only those posts or blogs that cross the line into active promotion or glorification of self-harm.

Adult Content. Don't upload images, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples —this includes content that is so photorealistic that it could be mistaken for featuring real-life humans (nice try, though). Certain types of artistic, educational, newsworthy, or political content featuring nudity are fine. Don’t upload any content, including images, videos, GIFs, or illustrations, that depicts sex acts. For more information about what this guideline prohibits and how to appeal decisions about adult content, check out our help desk.

(Wooooooh boy! The one everyone is up in arms about...I don’t see ANYTHING in here about banning obviously fake looking boobs. And honestly, if you draw the hyper-realistic stuff, that looks like it could be a REAL LIVE HUMAN BEING not everyone wants to find that when they go looking for a thing. I find it in the World of Warcraft rag all the time and it’s not what I want to see. Tag your shit...seriously. Admittedly it’s a fine line, but there’s a huge difference between anime porn and a shirtless guy drawing. I see nothing in there that says cartoony drawings are going.)

Violent Content and Threats, Gore and Mutilation. Don't post content which includes violent threats toward individuals or groups - this includes threats of theft, property damage, or financial harm. Don't post violent content or gore just to be shocking. Don't showcase the mutilation or torture of human beings, animals (including bestiality), or their remains. Don't post content that encourages or incites violence, or glorifies acts of violence or the perpetrators.

Non-Genuine Social Gesture Schemes. Don't participate in schemes to drive up non-genuine Follows, Likes, Reblogs, etc. Don't orchestrate or engage in "follow trains", where users are encouraged to follow lists of other users to gain more followers for themselves. Don't make bulk or indiscriminate use of messaging features, like Fan Mail or Asks, to, for example, bait Reblogs/Follows or drive traffic to your blog or website. If you want people to like you, just play it cool and be yourself.

(Oh thank god, can we do this to Instagram please?)

Deceptive or Fraudulent Links. Don't post deceptive or fraudulent links in your posts. This includes giving links misleading descriptions, putting the wrong “source” field in a post, setting misleading click-through links on images, or embedding links to interstitial or pop-up ads.

Misattribution or Non-Attribution. Make sure you always give proper attribution and include full links back to original sources. When you find something awesome on Tumblr, reblog it instead of reposting it. It's less work and more fun, anyway. When reblogging something, DO NOT inject a link back to your blog just to steal attention from the original post.

Username/URL Abuse or Squatting. Tumblr's usernames/URLs are meant for the use and enjoyment of all of our users. Don't squat, hoard, amass, accumulate, accrue, stockpile, rack up, buy, trade, sell, launder, invest in, ingest, get drunk on, cyber with, grope, or jealously guard Tumblr usernames/URLs.

Account Dormancy. Use Tumblr! Use Tumblr all the time! Or at the very least, use Tumblr once a year. If you don’t, we may mark your account as dormant. Your content won't go anywhere—it'll be archived exactly as you left it—but your URL(s) will be released for someone else to use.

Spam. Don't spam people. Don't make spammy posts, don't post spammy replies, don't send people spammy messages. Be a regular human. Don't put tags on your posts that will mislead or deceive searchers. For example, don't tag a photo of your cat with "doctor who" unless the name of your cat is actually Doctor Who, and don't overload your posts with #barely #relevant #tags. Of course, meaningful uses of tags are always fine (for example, ironic "punchline" tags that add meaning or context to a post). Don't put dubious code in your posts, like using JavaScript to cause redirects or inject unwanted ads in blogs. Don't use deceptive means to generate revenue or traffic, or create blogs with the primary purpose of affiliate marketing. Spam doesn't belong on Tumblr.

(YAY!)

Mass Registration or Automation. Don't register accounts or post content automatically, systematically, or programmatically.

Unauthorized Contests, Sweepstakes, or Giveaways. Please follow our guidelines for contests, sweepstakes, and giveaways.

Themes Distributed by Third Parties. To ensure the safety and stability of our blog network, it's important that themes are distributed through tumblr.com/themes. It's easy, it's secure, and any interested developer can use it to host and promote their work. Besides the inconvenience involved in using them, third-party theme repositories are often used to inject nefarious code that subjects users to spam, ads, or phishing attacks. Don't use them. Creating blogs or directories that curate themes from tumblr.com/themes is a-okay.

Copyright or Trademark Infringement. Respect the copyrights and trademarks of others. If you aren't allowed to use someone else's copyrighted or trademarked work (either by license or by legal exceptions and limitations such as fair use), don't post it.

Intellectual property is a tricky issue, so now is as good a time as any to explain some aspects of the process we use for handling copyright and trademark complaints. We respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement as per our Terms of Service and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act; please see our DMCA notification form to file a copyright claim online. Please note that we require a valid DMCA notice before removing content. Parties asserting a trademark infringement claim should identify the allegedly infringing work and the legal basis for their claim, and include the registration and/or application number(s) pertaining to their trademark. Each claim is reviewed by a trained member of our Trust and Safety team.

If we remove material in response to a copyright or trademark claim, the user who posted the allegedly infringing material will be provided with information from the complainant's notice (like identification of the rightsholder and the allegedly infringed work) so they can determine the basis of the claim.

With regard to repeat copyright infringement, we use a three-strike system to evaluate the standing of a user's account, where, generally, each valid copyright infringement notice constitutes a strike, and three strikes results in the termination of a user's account. When a user submits a valid DMCA counter-notification, we remove the associated strike from their record.

Whew. It's a complex process, but one we're proud of, and that we think strikes all the appropriate balances.

Confusion or Impersonation. Don't do things that would cause confusion between you or your blog and a person or company, like registering a deliberately confusing URL. Don't impersonate anyone. While you're free to ridicule, parody, or marvel at the alien beauty of Benedict Cumberbatch, you can't pretend to actually be Benedict Cumberbatch.

Harassment. Don't engage in targeted abuse or harassment. Don't engage in the unwanted sexualization or sexual harassment of others. If anyone is sending you unwanted messages or reblogging your posts in an abusive way, we encourage you to be proactive and block the hell out of them. And if someone blocks you, don't attempt to circumvent the block feature or otherwise try to communicate with them. Just stop.

Privacy Violations. Don't use Tumblr to deceptively obtain personal information. Don't post content that violates anyone's privacy, especially personally identifying or confidential information like credit card numbers, social security numbers, or unlisted contact information. Absolutely do not post non-consensual pornography—that is, private photos or videos taken or posted without the subject's consent.

Disruptions, Exploits, or Resource Abuse. Our servers, and the valiant engineers behind them, work hard for you. Don't attempt unauthorized use, disruption, or exploitation of Tumblr.com or our other products and services, or otherwise abuse Tumblr's resources.

Unlawful Uses or Content. Don't use Tumblr to conduct illegal behavior, like fraud or phishing. That should be pretty obvious to you, a decent human being.

Human Trafficking and Prostitution. Don't use Tumblr to facilitate sex trafficking, other forms of human trafficking, or illegal prostitution. If you see this activity on Tumblr, report it, and encourage victims to contact law enforcement or the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888.

If we conclude that you are violating these guidelines, you may receive a notice via email. If you don't explain or correct your behavior, we may take action against your account. We do our best to ensure fair outcomes, but in all cases we reserve the right to suspend accounts, or remove content, without notice, for any reason, but particularly to protect our services, infrastructure, users, and community. We reserve the right to enforce, or not enforce, these guidelines in our sole discretion, and these guidelines don't create a duty or contractual obligation for us to act in any particular manner.

You can report violations of these guidelines to us directly.

You can remove your own content whenever you want, of course. If you need help doing that, you can find instructions over in our help docs.

We also reserve the right to amend these guidelines using the procedures set forth in our Terms of Service.

If you have questions or feedback, don't hesitate to let us know.

Thanks for reading all of this, by the way. Welcome to Tumblr.

———————————-

That’s a huge blurb, sorry for all the people I flattened and NO I won’t be putting it behind a read more, no one will.

None of these rules are hard. In fact, they’re really simple.

Don’t post what isn’t yours.

Don’t pretend to be someone you’re not

Don’t scam people

Don’t spam post stupid shit

Don’t tag things that have nothing to do with the tag. (No more kpoppers in the Lee Pace tag!)

Don’t glorify self-harm, abuse or eating disorders.

Don’t bully people

Don’t threaten harming people because they’re not like you

Don’t post explicit, realistic sexual situations and try to call it art.

Don’t attempt sex with a minor, or try to phish for minors

....

Generally what these new guidelines are telling you to do is to BE A GENUINE, NICE PERSON AND DONT TREAT OTHERS LIKE SHIT!

Is that really difficult for some of you? FFS

#tumblr #guidelines #be a nice human #how hard is that to understand #tumblr exodus

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seocompanysurrey · 5 years

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Image SEO: alt tag and title tag optimization

Adding images to your articles encourages people to read them, and well-chosen images can also back up your message and get you a good ranking in image search results. But you should always remember to give your images good alt attributes: alt text strengthens the message of your articles with search engine spiders and improves the accessibility of your website. This article explains all about alt tags and title tags and why you should optimize them.

Note: the term “alt tag” is a commonly used abbreviation of what’s actually an alt attribute on an img tag. The alt tag of any image on your site should describe what’s on it. Screen readers for the blind and visually impaired will read out this text and therefore make your image accessible.

What are alt tags and title tags?

This is a complete HTML image tag:

The alt and title attributes of an image are commonly referred to as alt tag or alt text and title tag – even though they’re not technically tags. The alt text describes what’s on the image and the function of the image on the page. So if you are using an image as a button to buy product X, the alt text should say: “button to buy product X.”

The alt tag is used by screen readers, which are browsers used by blind and visually impaired people, to tell them what is on the image. The title attribute is shown as a tooltip when you hover over the element, so in the case of an image button, the image title could contain an extra call-to-action, like “Buy product X now for $19!”, although this is not a best practice.

Each image should have an alt text, not just for SEO purposes but also because blind and visually impaired people won’t otherwise know what the image is about, but a title attribute is not required. What’s more, most of the time it doesn’t make sense to add it. They are only available to mouse (or other pointing devices) users and the only one case where the title attribute is required for accessibility is on <iframe> and <frame> tags.

If the information conveyed by the title attribute is relevant, consider making it available somewhere else, in plain text and if it’s not relevant, consider removing the title attribute entirely.

But what if an image doesn’t have a purpose?

If you have images in your design that are purely there for design reasons, you’re doing it wrong, as those images should be in your CSS and not in your HTML. If you really can’t change these images, give them an empty alt attribute, like so:

The empty alt attribute makes sure that screen readers skip over the image.

alt text and SEO

Google’s article about images has a heading “Use descriptive alt text”. This is no coincidence because Google places a relatively high value on alt text to determine not only what is on the image but also how it relates to the surrounding text. This is why, in our Yoast SEO content analysis, we have a feature that specifically checks that you have at least one image with an alt tag that contains your focus keyphrase.

Yoast SEO checks for images and their alt text in your posts:We’re definitely not saying you should spam your focus keyphrase into every alt tag. You need good, high quality, related images for your posts, where it makes sense to have the focus keyword in the alt text. Here’s Google’s advice on choosing a good alt text:

When choosing alt text, focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and is in context of the content of the page. Avoid filling alt attributes with keywords (keyword stuffing) as it results in a negative user experience and may cause your site to be seen as spam.

If your image is of a specific product, include both the full product name and the product ID in the alt tag so that it can be more easily found. In general: if a keyphrase could be useful for finding something that is on the image, include it in the alt tag if you can. Also, don’t forget to change the image file name to be something actually describing what’s on it.

alt and title attributes in WordPress

When you upload an image to WordPress, you can set a title and an alt attribute. By default, it uses the image filename in the title attribute, which, if you don’t enter an alt attribute, it copies to the alt attribute. While this is better than writing nothing, it’s pretty poor practice. You really need to take the time to craft a proper alt text for every image you add to a post — users and search engines will thank you for it. The interface makes it easy: click an image, hit the edit button, and you’ll see this:There’s no excuse for not doing this right, other than laziness. Your (image) SEO will truly benefit if you get these tiny details right. Visually challenged users will also like you all the more for it.

Read more: Optimizing images for SEO »

The post Image SEO: alt tag and title tag optimization appeared first on Yoast.

from Yoast • SEO for everyone https://yoast.com/image-seo-alt-tag-and-title-tag-optimization/

#Yoast • SEO for everyone

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contractor-media · 6 years

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Increase Email Open Rate With 9 Key Factors

The common goal of all marketers is to gain email addresses from web visitors. Unlike social media or search engines, which have a company standing between you and your visitor, email is a direct connection to the customer. Because of this, crafting emails that drive traffic to your site is high on the list of priorities.

Of course, driving traffic from email depends on open rates. Find out how to increase your email open rate with these nine key factors.

1. Keep Subscribers Engaged

It’s important to send your subscribers regular emails to be sure that your list stays fresh, but you can still lose some of your email list over time. People may change emails or lose interest in your brand overall, so it’s smart to remove inactive subscribers regularly.

You can still give them one last chance to re-engage, however. This can be accomplished a number of ways, but it’s just an email asking your subscriber to engage with you before purging them from your list. Anyone who responds stays, but everyone else gets purged.

You can also check in with your subscriber list periodically to see if they want to update their information. This reminds them that they’re still in control of how they interact, which builds a more personal connection and encourages them to engage.

Finally, you can try to re-engage your list by conducting a survey to rate their satisfaction and gain some insight. Offering an incentive, such as a free gift, encourages their engagement and gives you valuable information to keep them satisfied.

2. Segment Your List

One of the most important factors in whether someone opens an email is deciding if it’s relevant to their needs. Segmentation is an easy way to accomplish this and be sure you’re not flooding your subscribers’ inboxes with emails that don’t apply to them.

Segmentation can be done a number of ways, but the best place to start is by tagging your subscribers’ behavior. For example, you want to send different types of emails to your repeat customers, first-time customers and future customers you’re nurturing.

You may also want to create segments based on the types of products purchased, demographics, locations and other information, so you can tailor your emails to your customers’ needs and entice them to open.

3. Avoid Spam

Spam filters are becoming more and more refined, but it’s still possible to end up with your emails in the spam folder. If this happens, you can count on your email never being opened.

So, if you want to maximize the reach and engagement of your email list, you need to do all you can to avoid ending up in the spam folder. Here are some tips:

Be sure everyone on your list opted-in.

Send emails from an IP address that hasn’t been used for spam in the past.

Send using a verified domain.

Make sure your code is clean.

Personalize the “to” field of your email.

Take the time to show subscribers how to add your business to their address book to be sure they always get your emails.

Avoid sales language that’s likely to trigger spam filters.

Avoid deceptive subject lines.

Include a location.

Make sure it’s easy for your subscribers to unsubscribe as they wish.

4. Get the Timing Right

Timing has a big impact on whether your subscribers open your emails, so it’s worth the time and effort to test different timeframes and see what performs.

You can also take advantage of others’ research, such as MailChimp. Though the research is general, it can give you a great starting point for when your emails will have the most impact.

Overall, they found that no particular day is better than another, but during the week is better than the weekend. Morning is also better than afternoon, evening or late night, but that’s also dependent on the location, occupation and age of the subscriber, as well as the type of content being sent.

That’s where you come in. Think a little about your subscribers and what their normal routine might be, what type of content you’re sending and when you would be most likely to want to read your email.

5. Improve Your Subject Line

Subject lines are a significant factor in your email open rate, so they have to grab attention. Some contractors get lazy with their email marketing and copy the same subject line formula over and over, leading to bored subscribers and unopened emails.

If you want to separate yourself from the pack, you need to get creative. Keep your subject lines intriguing but not overly clever or confusing, use a joke or question and speak in a language that aligns with your brand and your customers.

You can also check out this post from Neil Patel about writing great subject lines that get opened, which gives you some in-depth advice.

6. Write to One Person Only

When you write an email that’s meant to go out to thousands of subscribers, that can easily reflect in your tone. This makes sense, but it’s much less effective than writing as though you’re speaking to only one of your subscribers.

You want to keep your emails personal to connect with your audience, which can’t be done if you’re writing to the masses. This requires insight into your customer, however, and the ability to identify their problems, interests and values.

If you don’t have that type of insight on your customers yet, now is a great time to start. A simple email that includes a survey or a conversation allows you to ask the questions you need to better understand your customers’ problems.

7. Write Personally

As we mentioned, keeping it personal is much more effective that writing emails with mass appeal. Disconnected, sterile messages will never be opened on a consistent basis, regardless of how well you craft the rest of the email.

This is often challenging for people, but the key is to write to your subscribers as though you’re friends. They’re flooded with emails all day every day, so if you can reach them on a personal level and convince them that what you sent is worth reading, your emails will be opened.

8. Create Excellent Content

Content is read after an email is opened, so you may wonder why that’s included on this list. Even if your goal is to increase the open rate, you still want your emails opened consistently in the future, and that has everything to do with what’s inside.

Think about it this way. If your subscribers take a shot on you and start opening your emails, only to find content that’s subpar or shallow, they have no incentive to open your emails again.

Keep it valuable and relevant to your audience every time, and you may find yourself with a long list of loyal subscribers who look forward to getting your emails.

9. Make it Mobile Friendly

Mobile is increasingly more popular, so it makes sense that a lot of your audience uses their smartphone to open an email. Even if your product and target audience fall outside of the demographic most likely to use mobile for email, you still can’t afford to neglect the needs of your mobile users.

Mobile-friendly formatting is the first step in this process, but there are some other things to consider about emails specifically. Smaller screens make it more difficult to see graphics and shorten subject lines, so that’s something you need to think about as you write your email.

You also want smaller images that load faster, and make sure your email looks good without them. Some systems turn images off immediately, so you may spend that time on an email that doesn’t display images anyway.

Finally, pay attention to your buttons and links. Your mobile subscribers are using a touchscreen, so small call-to-action buttons and links that are too close together will have them accidentally clicking the wrong thing or unable to click altogether.

Keep at It

If you’re looking for better open rates, improving in these key factors will certainly help, but it may take some time to see what works and what doesn’t. Regardless of your insights, email marketing is a little bit of an experiment, so give yourself a chance to find out what works for your brand and your audience to enjoy sustainable results.

Increase Email Open Rate With 9 Key Factors republished from the Contractor Marketing blog by Contractor Media

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philipfloyd · 6 years

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Does The Meta Description Tag Affect SEO & Search Engine Rankings?

There’s a lot of confusion when it comes to meta descriptions and SEO. Do they affect search engine rankings? Is it worth spending the time to write a good meta description?

Well, in theory, meta descriptions do not affect SEO. This is an official statement from Google, released in 2009. However, since meta descriptions show in the search engine results, they can affect CTRs (click through rates), which are linked to SEO & rankings. So, in practice, meta descriptions might have an impact on SEO.

Things are a lot more complicated than that. In order to better understand the topic, I recommend you to continue reading this article. It will explain everything you need to know about the importance of meta description tags.

What Is the Meta Description Tag?

Why Meta Descriptions Don’t Matter (In Theory)

Why Meta Descriptions Matter (In Practice)

How to Add Meta Description Tags

How to Write Good Meta Description Tags

Before we start, let’s make it clear for everyone what a meta description is.

What Is the Meta Description Tag?

HTML runs with tags. A tag is a set of characters that result in a command. In web development, these tags specify to the browser how elements should be structured on a web page.

The <meta> tag is a tag that contains data about the web page itself. It’s the data behind the data, just like in metaphysics. In our case, the meta description provides a summary of what the page is about. The users read it to figure out what they’re about to click on.

Google uses the meta descriptions (along with the title tag and the URL) to come up with search results on its pages. You can usually recognize the meta description by taking a look at a web page’s search result. Here’s a branded search for the keyword “cognitiveSEO”:

If the meta description tag is missing, Google will just pick a piece of content from your page, which it thinks is the most relevant for the user.

I have a good example from no other than Wikipedia, the 5th most popular website on the planet. I’m not sure if it’s missing on this page only or if it’s a general thing, but… well, the meta description tag isn’t there.

But how do I know there’s no meta description tag? Well, the correct way of checking a meta description tag is to look into the source code of a web page. You can do this by hitting CTRL + U in Chrome, or by right-clicking the web page and selecting View Page Source.

Then, just use the find function (CLTR + F) to search for <meta name=”description”. If you get the result, it’s there and you can view it. You can also see if it matches the one on the search results. If it’s not there… well… it’s not there.

As you can see, in Wikipedia’s case, it’s not there. You can also search for variations, such as “description” or “<meta” in case the tag is written in a slightly different way. I made sure that Wikipedia doesn’t have it.

Even if the meta description tag is missing, Google does display something pretty relevant in the search results.

It’s actually a phrase taken from the content of the page. In this case, it’s actually the first paragraph. You can view it in one of the images above.

Although widely believed so, Google doesn’t always pick the meta description tag to display it in the search. Even if the meta description tag is there, Google can still alter the text shown in the results pages. In fact, Google always chooses to pick what it wants. For example, if I add another keyword found in the homepage, Google will alter the text in the results to also show parts from that text.

Sometimes, if Google thinks the description is completely irrelevant for the article, it will ignore it completely and pick something else. Having control over what shows in the search engine results is very useful. You should craft your meta description well, so that Google picks that instead of anything else.

We’ll talk about how to write good meta descriptions for SEO soon in the article, so keep reading.

Why Meta Descriptions Don’t Matter (In Theory)

A long time ago, meta descriptions used to impact SEO directly. Search engines would parse these lines of text and look for keywords. A page would then be boosted on a keyword phrase if that particular keyword phrase was also found in the meta description (among with title tag and content).

I think you’ve figured out what followed. Obviously, people tried to abuse it by stuffing keywords in it, in an attempt to rank for as many phrases as possible. Since Google doesn’t like it when people abuse ranking factors, it made a big change in its algorithm, affecting everyone.

If this sounds familiar, then you might be mixing up the meta description tag with the meta keywords tag, which is actually obsolete (at least for Google).

Another common confusion is that meta descriptions matter for SEO and only meta keywords don’t matter.

I’ll clarify this right now:

In 2009, Google officially released a statement entitled “Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking“. But, because they were lazy, many people didn’t read through the entire post and missed the following section:

Even though we sometimes use the description meta tag for the snippets we show, we still don’t use the description meta tag in our ranking. Google

Even more, there is a video of Matt Cutts (Former Head of Spam @ Google) that talks only about the meta keywords tag not being used as a search ranking factor:

youtube

This doesn’t mean that Google completely ignores these meta tags, or all meta tags, as some users might think.

Although some people still use the meta keywords tag, it’s usually a good idea to show Google that you’re keeping up with the news. Older websites still use meta keywords internally, for things like product search or sorting. It’s also useful for Google Search Appliance. However, if you don’t use them, there’s no point in showing them.

Important note: Other search engines, like Yandex, still use the meta keywords tag as a search ranking factor. So if you’re trying to rank there, you should keep them. If your site is multilingual, you can try to keep the keywords meta tag for the /ru version and remove it from other languages that mainly use Google.

Why Meta Descriptions Matter (In Practice)

Ok, so Google says that meta descriptions don’t alter search engine rankings. But Google says many things and it’s also hard to find accurate information. As seen above, you have to carefully extract the semantics between the lines to clearly understand a topic. There’s more about the meta descriptions than just rankings.

Should you just ditch them altogether, if they don’t help with rankings? Hell no!

The description meta tag has a great importance and, indirectly, it might even affect search engine rankings.

How? Well, the short answer is: through CTR (click through rate).

Meta Descriptions Can Affect CTR

Click through rate represents the percentage of users that click on your search result from the total number of users that view your search result. It’s the same principles as a conversion rate, but with a different, more specific name.

The formula for calculating CTR is: Clicks / Impressions * 100. So, if you had 700 impressions and 20 people clicked on it, your CTR would be 20/700 * 100 = 2.86%. Or, much easier if you have 100 impressions and 5 clicks, then the click through rate would be 5%.

But why do meta descriptions affect CTR? Well, the answer to that is pretty simple. On the search page, you have 3 elements that mix up in order to create your search result:

Title tag

URL

Description (Meta description tag or other piece of text)

If you take a look at the results on a Google search page, you can see that the meta description takes up about 50% of the space. Sometimes, even more.

Even if the title tag is the most important one, description still matters. Google bolds important phrases in the description, which catch the eye. In order to make sense of the bolded phrases, you have to read the entire sentence or at least part of it.

The following example is a localized search result, so your search engine results might differ from mine. Nonetheless, it’s a good example of something that catches the eye. Now I know nothing about shoes, so in my opinion, branding here doesn’t matter. For me, the most interesting result is the last one.

Why? Because it mentions things I’m actually interested about, before actually seeing the shoes. I might not like them, of course (although there are over 15000 models to choose from), but I sure do want that 85% discount and prices as low as $15. For example, ASOS lists something about women. Well… I’m a man (a boy, at least) and I don’t care. Yoox has the luxury of getting 2 positions, which is great and also states something about delivery and online payments.

Now there could be a lot of other factors why the other websites are ranking higher. For once, shoes.com’s title is too long and the URL sucks. Other websites might be linked to locations closer to mine. Then we could go into technical SEO issues and number of referring domains.

Anyway, the results were inconsistent. Changing location from US to UK showed different results. For example, 6PM sometimes shown its own meta description and other times just showed menu elements, like in the picture above. In other cases, shoes.com showed at the top.

Now, the question that remains is: Does CTR affect SEO? Well, according to Google, yes! Brian Dean also mentioned this in his famous article about top Google ranking factors, at number 135. A wide number of other experts also agree that CTR is a Google ranking factor.

You see, Google gives a lot of importance to the user’s experience. If a user doesn’t click on your result, it has no experience whatsoever. Your score is basically 0. Only after the user clicks on your result can Google take a look at things like scroll count or bounce rate.

Meta Descriptions Are Used by Other Web Platforms

Secondly, meta descriptions might be important for other platforms. Just to mention a few of them, think of Facebook and Twitter. When you share a link on these platforms, they extract data from the HTML in order to display titles, images and descriptions.

Now these very popular platforms have their own tags. Twitter has Twitter Cards and Facebook uses the Open Graph tags to correctly display the required information.

However, many other web platforms might not have their own universally accepted tags and could rely on standard meta tags. Meta tags can also be important for apps and browsers.

Take advantage of custom tags, such as Twitter Cards and Facebook Open Graph. These will enable you to use different titles, descriptions and images across different platforms, which can increase your CTRs.

What works on search engines might not work on Facebook and what works on Facebook might not work on Twitter. This is mostly true with images. Facebook, for example, requires a specific size to display images nicely. Your website’s featured image might require a different size. Open Graph provides a solution to this issue.

How to Add Meta Description Tags

Writing a meta description tags is easy. Adding it is even easier. You just have to edit your HTML template from the cPanel of your web hosting service and add the following code between your <head> & </head> tag in the page.

Sounds hard? Don’t worry, I’m joking. Although you can do it on plain HTML websites, most websites use databases which makes things different.

If you’re running on a popular CMS (Content Management System) like WordPress, you can use a plugin. The most popular one is Yoast SEO. It’s pretty easy to use. After you install it, a box will appear under the article’s body, in the editor.

By default, WordPress uses the article/page heading as the <title> tag. A big advantage of using an SEO plugin is that you can use different titles on your site and on Google.

For example, maybe your heading doesn’t fit Google’s search engine results, but you really like it. You can keep that on your site and use the SEO plugin to display something shorter for the search engines.

If you click the preview, it will enable you to edit the fields. Right now, my fields are empty, but by the time I publish this article they will be filled up accordingly. If you click the social media tab on the left, it will also enable you to enter social media titles, descriptions and images. This will add the correct tags to your HTML and display the proper elements on each platform.

There are similar plugins for most popular platforms. Some themes even have their own SEO fields sections. I recommend that you use Yoast though. It’s definitely the best.

How to Write Good Meta Description Tags

It’s difficult to master the art of copywriting. It is definitely more complex than I can cover in this section and takes years of practice, trial and error to improve. When you write meta descriptions, think about selling the user something in one short paragraph. You’re selling him the click to your website.

Focus keyword: First of all, let’s discuss about keywords. I’ve stated that you shouldn’t stuff keywords in when writing meta description tags. While this is good advice, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t add keywords at all.

It’s important to add focus keywords to your descriptions. Why? Because Google bolds them and people like to see what they search for. If what they search for is in bold on your description, it reassures them that what they’re looking for lies behind that link.

If you’re targeting multiple keyword phrases, conduct some keyword research to identify the most important one. Use that in your description if others don’t fit. Which brings us to the next important aspect…

Length: Secondly, make sure you don’t exceed the number of characters. You might get your description cut in the wrong place and it won’t have the same impact anymore. As of May 2018, the recommended length is around 160-180 characters. Google confirmed shortening the length back to its initial state, after expanding it to around 300 characters, less than 6 months before, in December 2017.

Interesting & Relevant: You don’t have to deceive people. You just have to make them curious or excited. State out your discounts and premium features. Things that your competition doesn’t have. It’s interesting how people add discounts and interesting things in their paid search (Google Adwords) descriptions, but stuff keywords instead in meta descriptions for SEO. They serve the same purpose!

Call to Action: People like to be told what to do. If you view the source of this page (CTRL + U) and search for the description meta tag, you’ll see that I tell users to click the link. If you’re here through search engine rankings, it’s a clear sign that it worked. Add a call to action!

Every page should have its own, personalized meta description. This might be difficult for large eCommerce stores. You can use patterns to generate similar descriptions but with different elements, such as focus keyword and discount amount. However, be careful with duplicate meta descriptions, as this could tell Google that you have very similar pages and that could harm your website.

Conclusion

In short, Google says that meta descriptions do not directly impact search engine rankings. However, these descriptions can indirectly impact SEO through click through rates.

This is very important when you’re fighting between 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. There, things like technical SEO and backlinks tend to matter less. Google also has more room to play with the CTR, as the top 3 positions get about 80% of all the clicks.

Make sure you take advantage of the meta description tag and write your descriptions in a clever way, to convince users to click your link.

Do you use meta descriptions? What’s your experience with changing them? Did they have any impact on your click through rates? Let us know in the comments section. Also, if you have any questions, feel free to ask them. We’ll gladly reply.

The post Does The Meta Description Tag Affect SEO & Search Engine Rankings? appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

from Marketing https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/19066/meta-description-affects-seo/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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wjwilliams29 · 6 years

Text

Does The Meta Description Tag Affect SEO & Search Engine Rankings?

There’s a lot of confusion when it comes to meta descriptions and SEO. Do they affect search engine rankings? Is it worth spending the time to write a good meta description?

What Is the Meta Description Tag?

Why Meta Descriptions Don’t Matter (In Theory)

Why Meta Descriptions Matter (In Practice)

How to Add Meta Description Tags

How to Write Good Meta Description Tags

Before we start, let’s make it clear for everyone what a meta description is.

What Is the Meta Description Tag?

HTML runs with tags. A tag is a set of characters that result in a command. In web development, these tags specify to the browser how elements should be structured on a web page.

If the meta description tag is missing, Google will just pick a piece of content from your page, which it thinks is the most relevant for the user.

Even if the meta description tag is missing, Google does display something pretty relevant in the search results.

It’s actually a phrase taken from the content of the page. In this case, it’s actually the first paragraph. You can view it in one of the images above.

We’ll talk about how to write good meta descriptions for SEO soon in the article, so keep reading.

Why Meta Descriptions Don’t Matter (In Theory)

If this sounds familiar, then you might be mixing up the meta description tag with the meta keywords tag, which is actually obsolete (at least for Google).

Another common confusion is that meta descriptions matter for SEO and only meta keywords don’t matter.

I’ll clarify this right now:

Even though we sometimes use the description meta tag for the snippets we show, we still don’t use the description meta tag in our ranking. Google

Even more, there is a video of Matt Cutts (Former Head of Spam @ Google) that talks only about the meta keywords tag not being used as a search ranking factor:

youtube

This doesn’t mean that Google completely ignores these meta tags, or all meta tags, as some users might think.

Why Meta Descriptions Matter (In Practice)

Should you just ditch them altogether, if they don’t help with rankings? Hell no!

The description meta tag has a great importance and, indirectly, it might even affect search engine rankings.

How? Well, the short answer is: through CTR (click through rate).

Meta Descriptions Can Affect CTR

But why do meta descriptions affect CTR? Well, the answer to that is pretty simple. On the search page, you have 3 elements that mix up in order to create your search result:

Title tag

URL

Description (Meta description tag or other piece of text)

If you take a look at the results on a Google search page, you can see that the meta description takes up about 50% of the space. Sometimes, even more.

Meta Descriptions Are Used by Other Web Platforms

Now these very popular platforms have their own tags. Twitter has Twitter Cards and Facebook uses the Open Graph tags to correctly display the required information.

However, many other web platforms might not have their own universally accepted tags and could rely on standard meta tags. Meta tags can also be important for apps and browsers.

How to Add Meta Description Tags

Sounds hard? Don’t worry, I’m joking. Although you can do it on plain HTML websites, most websites use databases which makes things different.

By default, WordPress uses the article/page heading as the <title> tag. A big advantage of using an SEO plugin is that you can use different titles on your site and on Google.

There are similar plugins for most popular platforms. Some themes even have their own SEO fields sections. I recommend that you use Yoast though. It’s definitely the best.

How to Write Good Meta Description Tags

Conclusion

In short, Google says that meta descriptions do not directly impact search engine rankings. However, these descriptions can indirectly impact SEO through click through rates.

Make sure you take advantage of the meta description tag and write your descriptions in a clever way, to convince users to click your link.

The post Does The Meta Description Tag Affect SEO & Search Engine Rankings? appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

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swrx-rant · 7 years

Text

FORUMS!

THEY ALMOST ALWAYS SUCK, AND THAT HAS LESS TO DO WITH THE USERS THAN THE FUCKING DEVS AND MODS.

SEARCH FUCKING SUCKS - I mean way worse than web-search in general. If you are looking for a specific topic, GOOD FUCKING LUCK. Your best bet is to use a suck-ass web-crawler/search like Google if you want to find anything on a god damned forum.

Searches NEVER USE CONTEXT... if I’m on the page for WINDOWS FUCKING 7, then why are results for versions XP, Vista, 8, and 10 appearing HIGHER in the list?

Searches rarely implement TAGS well, especially the ability to CROSS-REFERENCE TAGS. So, if I search the tags #Tomato #Soup #Recipe, I would actually get ALL AND ONLY recipe results for soups that use tomato, NOT EVERY FUCKING RECIPE ON YOU SITE PLUS EVERY PAGE THAT DISCUSSES SOUPS OR TOMATOES RETURNED IN RANDOM ORDER THAT PLACES THE FIRST RELEVANT MATCH SOMEWHERE ON PAGE FOURTEEN OF FIFTY-THOUSAND!

NAVIGATION FUCKING SUCKS - and this makes the shit-sucking search process all the more painful. Less than 1% of forums are designed with LOGICAL SUB-CATEGORY LEVEL AND RECURSIVE SUB-FORUMS that are applicable to the purpose/theme of the forum. If, for example, you are Microshit and you create a user forum (especially to build free crowd-based help as so many companies are doing rather than staffing call centers with trained and experienced individuals who are competent in the technologies they are assisting with as well as the language the customers are speaking...), then you are EXPECTED to create a Super-Forum and split it first by PRODUCT FAMILY, then split the products into Sub-Forums by PRODUCT MAJOR-VERSION (not fucking build number, jackasses! The same goes for fucking Patch Notes), and then, if you aren’t a total douche you will create an ALTERNATE DIMENSION OF SUBDIVISION, this time by ELEMENT or MAJOR FEATURES - which unless you are a fargin-idgit MUST INCLUDE: “INTERFACE/USER-EXPERIENCE”, “BUGS” (and this one subdivides by the NATURE OF THE BUG AS PERCEIVED BY USERS... these bugs are DISEASES, and like diseases they should be NAMED and CATEGORIZED by SYMPTOMS, but you can skip the Latin names like Mnemitis for an Inflammation of the Memory... which is a fair description of a MEMORY LEAK.), “PERFORMANCE”, “INSTALLATION/ACTIVATION/UPDATES”, “PRIMARY-FUNCTION”, and individually listed USEFUL FEATURES with the ability to add subtopics as necessary ad infinitum. (don’t take that to mean spam us with infinite numbers of adverts)

If you’re not already familiar, check out PHP.NET’s online function reference, its like a hybrid between an authoritarian-wiki and an open forum. Each entry is RELEVANT and EASY TO LOCATE, it has ESSENTIAL INFORMATION and CONCISE EXAMPLES, and allows anyone to give direct USER FEEDBACK//NOTES - I cannot stress the importance of this last part enough, LET PEOPLE TELL YOU WHAT THE FUCK THEY THINK ABOUT EACH FEATURE/ISSUE. You don’t have to automatically make them publicly visible, but you are dipshits if you ignore the extremely valuable resource/insight into your customer-base. Too damned many companies make it unbearably difficult for users to give them FEEDBACK, then they bitch when people switch to a smarter product from a company that actually gives a shit. (hey, that’s not a bad slogan... “we actually give a shit”... the word actually serves to chide the competition here... ;p Along the same vein as, “unlike some other Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English Accent.”)

THE MODERATORS FUCKING SUCK - I’m sorry, but you guys do. I understand that you’re mainly trying to keep an amorphous blob of bile and twigs from deteriorating into complete crap... but you are FAILING, and its not your fault... the game was rigged from the start, because they were SHIT from the moment they first went online. You guys suck at your jobs because the JOB SUCKS and that’s because the fucking RULES SUCK. Whomever the fuck came up with this shit needs to have a cheese grater ran along their eyelids for an hour each morning.

THE RULES FUCKING SUCK - so of course they turn the mods into assholes and other posters into fuckwads. There are so many issues here, but I will try to focus on the biggest tossers of all the ideas that went into these digital colostomy sacks:

NO NECROS - first of all, if you can bring the dead back to life you deserve a fucking medal, not to be given shit by peers and admins alike, and it’s not like I’m advocating Necro-Larry for President.. though he really wouldn’t be any more scandalous then what we’ve already had. But, more to the point, DO YOU ASSHOLES UNDERSTAND WHAT THE INTERNET FUCKING IS??? (and I’m not being existential here, we’ll leave the philosophical impacts for the future to reflect on). THERE IS NO PAST, THE INTERNET EXISTS IN THE ETERNAL NOW WE CALL THE PRESENT. That means NO MATTER HOW OLD THE POST IS, PEOPLE WILL STUMBLE ACROSS IT IN THE FUTURE. And it will be JUST AS RELEVANT THEN AS IT WAS WHEN CREATED! Especially since BUGS DON’T STAY DEAD, so why should decriers of old problems be told to shut the fuck up? That’s like saying, “Homelessness? We talked about that once in 1932, stop bringing it up already! It’s a dead issue!” (this is the kind of shit you get from people who want to IGNORE PROBLEMS instead of addressing them - FUCK THOSE PEOPLE, THE GENE POOL IS BETTER OFF WITHOUT THEM!) [wow, if you just read the bold that’s really dark... lol. I’m starting to sound like an industrialist.]

LOCKING THREADS - fucking stupid to begin with, especially in response to necromancy, but lets not forget their monumentally fucktarded cousin, the Self-Locking Thread - what kind of cold war cloak and dagger fantasizing bullshit is this? This thread will self-destruct in 5 seconds! I don’t care if its been 10 years, if the problem ain’t been fixed, then SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GET TO WORK, don’t cry about someone posting relevant information just because you’ve given up hope of ever fixing it... or assumed no one has noticed.

YOU MUST BE LOGGED IN TO POST - that’s kinda like saying you must suck my ass to breathe... it was a shitty idea when some fuckwad dreamed up that god awful movie, and it ain’t gettin any better. Now, I’m not suggesting anons should be treated the same, but ANYONE should be allowed to post FEEDBACK or SUGGESTIONS whether or not they have an account with your fucktarded forum. Google-Tourists have the right to be heard too! If I find your thread by accident (which lets face it, any result in a Google Search is pretty much an accident), and have something to contribute, I should be able to do so without jumping through 60 billion hoops. I don’t want to be a member, but when a Medical Doctor overhears someone giving Awful Medical Advice or finds someone that ISN’T GETTING THE HELP THEY NEED/ASKED FOR, it is their responsibility to become involved! The same goes for any other profession, I may not be “one of you”, but I know what the fuck I’m talking about so listen the fuck up and be grateful I give a shit (unlike many of you). [wow, that came across conceited... lmao]

REVERSE PAGE ORDER - you lazy, half-assed mother fucking programmers! Shame on you. It might seem like a good idea at the time, but this is one of the biggest blunders you can expound on the web. YOUR FUCKING PAGES MOVE, ¡CAVRONE! Do you understand this??? If a user BOOKMARKS A PAGE, they WON’T GET THE SAME PAGE when they reopen it a year later!!! What does it matter? Go back up and reread the bit about the web being TIMELESS... [take a Physics Lesson while you are at it, this is like asking what was before the Universe... there was no time (as we know it) before the universe, therefor there was nothing before it.] So, when I find your forum in a Floogol search and it links me to page 6 when the actual content it matched is now on page 147, I am understandably PISSED THE FUCK OFF... and the first thing I do is curse Larry and Serge, then I realize this one isn’t even their fault.

I’m sure there are a bunch more rules that are written by simpletons for assholes, but that’s enough for now.

TROLLS FUCKING SUCK - even when they not trying to be assholes, they fail miserably at common decency. I swear I am going to kill the next motherfucker who posts “why would you want to ____” as a reply, especially on a Tech Support Forum. It doesn’t even matter whether its my post, or something I stumbled across after 6 hours of screaming at Serge and Larry’s even less than unhelpful online information location apparatus.

MVPs are Worse than Trolls - how the fuck did these dickshits get the job of officially representing the company? They know less than shit about the product they are supporting, and most of the time they suggest installing questionable third party crapware to solve the problem. (Please don’t confuse “the Microsoft MVPs”, who are actually pretty cool and helpful, with the dumbasses that Microsoft calls MVPs on their fucking support forums... these guys barely speak English and haven’t written a line of code in their life!)

And despite an extra row of Microsoft bashing, this wasn’t targeted at their forums any more than Blizzards or any others... ALL FORUMS ARE SHIT!!!!

But, hey, you knew all this already... so who the fuck am I even talking to here?

#Forums #Forums Suck #Bad Design #Bad by Design #Fuck Microsoft #Fuck Google Search #Fuck Trolls #Necromancy FTW!#Necro-Larry for President

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