keyword meta tag questions

1) is there a difference in terms of effectiveness between the following tags:
<meta name="keywords" content="soft, serve, ice, cream">
<meta name="keywords" content="soft serve, ice cream">
<meta name="keywords" content="soft serve ice cream">

2) is one way or another a better strategy? for example...
<meta name="keywords" content="strawberry ice cream, chocolate ice cream, vanilla ice cream">
-vs-
<meta name="keywords" content="ice, cream, strawberry, chocolate, vanilla">

I've been through the guides, but cannot find any straight-forward answers on this. Thanks for any help! -- praxis

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I pity da foo

1. No, i do not think so.

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www.geocities.com/richardginn/templatehtml -Come visit the Template HTML homepage

I think it depends on the search engines, some of them allow searches on one key word, some take the whole word inside a comma and take that as a keyword. Since there is no one right way for doing this, you cannot find a straight forward answer to it.

I would recommand to seperate it by commas.

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I am crab, scoins is crap.

Quote:

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Originally posted by richardginn:
1. No, i do not think so.

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template HTML ??? what is that ?

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I am crab, scoins is crap.

My opinion is that you should try to use search terms rather than words, for example:
<meta name="keywords" content="soft serve, ice cream">
is better than soft, serve, ice, cream

people tend to type in search criteria more like sentences than single words, so you should get more hit with the two-word terms. But don't stop at just keyword meta tags, many search engines these days count words and terms in the page more important than the hidden meta tags, so be sure to use those in the body of your web page. Don't overuse any words eiter though.

You should really research search engine placement, there is a wealth of information on that topic to be found on the web.

Good luck

Quote:

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Originally posted by namgor:
template HTML ??? what is that ?

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Just an idea I came up with, the site will get an update soon.



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www.geocities.com/richardginn/templatehtml -Come visit the Template HTML homepage

Try to make your meta tags into words or phrases that people are likely to search for. However, most search engines search the actual textual content of your pages, and not the meta tags. Some even search the page titles.

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Now listening to:
Mogwai - Rock Action
[This is an ad for]

thanks for straightening out the phrase/keyword issue...I think I have a handle on all the other search engine-related stuff. There's plenty of info out there on this, but nowhere in any of that could I find a specific stance on the phrase vs. keyword thing. Thanks again!

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you can't outlaw nature, and you can't rule poeple's minds
spex