Websynn Internet and Tech Blog

17Oct/110

Are META keywords still important? Bing says Yes! Google Says No

META Keywords used to be all of the rage back in the day. It was a way to suggest to the search engines what your page is trying to rank for, or essentially, what your page is about. Over the years, Google and Yahoo announced that they are not paying attention to META keywords anymore, and many people stopped using them all together. However, some people still continued to use META keywords. Those who used it were mocked because they were essentially telling their competition what keywords they want to rank for, and what keywords are important to them.

However, with Bing being the new kid on the SEO block, they are now announcing that they are in fact using the META keywords to rank pages. Since Yahoo search is now powered by Bing, Yahoo search is using META keywords as well.

So if you are not using META keywords, I would suggest you start. Bing might not be a big player yet, but don't rule them out. Plus, they still have a lot of traffic, even if it is less than Google's. You still want to capitalize on that.

Go go META keywords! Welcome back!

28Feb/110

Bing now features Facebook Like Results – Privacy Issues Anyone?

Bing announced recently that they are now going to show search results with little boxes next to them if your Facebook friends happened to like the URL. So let's say you search for cat toys on Bing, and then you see the first 10 results. If your friends happened to "Like" any one of those results, it would show up with a little picture of your friends profile picture under the link. Pretty cool right?

The problem I see with this is it's going to cause a super high amount of privacy concerns. How many Facebook users know that if they like a certain page, they need to set their privacy settings for either Public or Friends Only? I'm sure at least half don't know.

Imagine this... Someone sends you a NWS link at home. You think it's funny, and do a harmless "like" next to it. Next week, your boss (who is also your facebook friend), happens to get that same link from one of his friends. He looks at the link in disgust but when stops in his tracks - right under the link is your profile photo showing that you like that link. Think it'll cause any problems?

I give Bing credit for integrating social media into their results, the idea is very cool, but the privacy issues remain.