Are Meta Keywords Useful, In Blogger Blog Posts?

Some blog owners do not completely understand the concept of meta description, vs meta keywords - and how blog search reputation can be affected.

We see occasional questions, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger.

I know how to enter meta info on each blog post under the Search Description field - but do I have to put all permutations of a subject in the Search Description?

Here, we see the possibility of unintended "keyword stuffing", and degraded search engine reputation.

We must be careful to not misuse the meta search description feature - and avoid keyword stuffing.

Well written meta descriptions can help search reputation.

A well written meta description can be part of a well designed blog and of well written posts. It can help search engines index a blog, or a post, properly - and in a SERP listing, can attract readers.

Contrarily, a collection of meta keywords can look like keyword stuffing. The latter can cause degraded search engine reputation.

Search engines are long past benefiting from meta keywords.

Search engines have long been made more introspective, than for a blog to benefit from meta keywords. Search engines now extract keywords from indexed content, automatically.

While it is possible to design blog or website pages to use keywords, keywords now are extracted from visible content. Google is quite blunt about meta keywords.

Google doesn't use the "keywords" meta tag in our web search ranking.

Write good posts, to get good SERP positions.

If you want good SERP positioning, write good posts, using informative, interesting, and unique content. That's the best advice, for Blogger blogs.

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Some #Blogger blog owners still try to use meta keyword tags, to improve search engine reputation. They don't realise that search engines now develop their own keyword lists, from visible content.

Good search list positions come from good content, to be read by people - not from jumbles of words, randomly strung together.

https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html

https://moz.com/community/q/meta-keywords-should-we-use-them-or-not

http://cohlab.com/blog/stop-using-keywords-meta-tag.html

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/79812

Jump Break, Main Page Contents, And Search Engines

The articles in this blog, which discusses production and use of Blogger blogs, are written as posts.

The various posts are combined, using embedded links, in different ways. Each new post appears on the main page, as it is written - and the various posts, appearing together on the main page, create opportunities for confusion, with the readers of the blog.

Long ago, the task of moderating comments was rather depressing to me, as the focus of many of the comments made me think that nobody was actually reading the articles. Maybe, I would write an interesting post about URL availability; but when moderating comments, I would find questions about posting comments on static pages. Or maybe a post about dynamic template concepts would attract complaints about referer spam.

Why should I publish my advice, if nobody cares enough to read the articles and comment relevantly?

Just previous to this post, I wrote about Stats displays, and the contents of the Posts lists.

In the process of writing the latter article, I discovered one obscure benefit of using "Jump Break" - and how "Jump Break" affects main page view, search engine indexing, and finally, relevance of comments to post subject.

A home page, with a variety of posts, naturally produces un focused comments.

Why the apparent lack of focus, of the comments? One reason is that many different posts, published one after the other, appear in sequence, in the blogs main page.

People will read the posts - and the search engines will index the posts - using main page view. Only after newer posts force the older posts, one by one, from main page view, will the individual posts have any significance - to people or search engines.

Using my example above, and looking at my main page when this post was new, one would have found a post about URL availability, published a week after a post about posting comments on static pages. By the time the search engines indexed the latter post, I would have published the former post. The post about URL availability would be visible in main page view, ahead of the post about posting comments on static pages.

Clicking on the link to my blog, attached to a SERP entry referencing static pages, the reader will read my main page from the top, find the previously visible post about URL availability, and the Comments link following the post. Clicking on the first Comments link found, the reader will post his question about static pages, against my post about URL availability.

Use of Jump Break gives a home page that can be easily read, top to bottom.

So, what effect does the use of "Jump Break" have on this problem? Using "Jump Break" on all main page posts makes it more likely that a potential reader of the blog, following a home page link to the blog, has more chance to see all recent posts, with their summaries.

The reader is more likely to scan down the page, see a summarised relevant post, click on "Read more" - and read the relevant post, on the individual post page, before commenting.

Use of Jump Break gives more weight to the individual posts, as indexed.

Additionally, with the posts summarised in main page view, the search engines will find less content on the main page. The full posts will be indexed as individual post pages, more than as part of the main page. This gives more weight to the individual posts, and less weight to the main page.

When indexed using an automatically generated, robust sitemap (2014), the posts will appear individually in SERP lists, decreasing reader main page confusion. Each SERP entry, pointing to an individual post, will be more relevantly focused - giving it more weight than a SERP entry, pointing to main page view.

Use of Jump Break, consistently, produces a win-win-win scenario.

In summary, careful and consistent use of "Jump Break" leads to:

• Better focus on individual and relevant blog articles, by the search engines.
• Less confusion to the blogs readers, when accessing the blog using SERP hit lists.
• Less frustration for the blog owner, when moderating comments.

It's really a win-win-win, when used consistently. And, it's so simple to apply, on a post by post basis. Check it out, in action.

What's In The Boxes?

Every day, we see one or two queries from confused bloggers, about these boxes.

I type the URL in my browser, and get

No blog found.

or

Why doesn't it show more than what's in my blog?

or

I know the URL. I can see it on my dashboard even. But the search says that it's not there.

All of these observations are evidence of people who don't know what all the boxes in the browser are intended to provide.

When you view your blog, there are 2 to 4 boxes of which you need to be aware.

The accessories on any given blog will vary, according to wishes of the owner.
Depending upon what accessories are provided in any given blog, there may be more. Depending upon what browser you have, there may be less. And depending upon what browser you have, the label, position, and size of any of these boxes isn't predictable. But, the boxes will be there.

• Browser Address Box. This is the most important box visible. This is where you are supposed to paste or type the URL of your blog, another blog, or any website, to browse to the blog or website.
• Browser Search Box. This is a browser accessory, provided by some browsers, so you don't have to load the web page of the major search engines. Here, as on the search boxes on the various web pages, you paste or type the search that you want to do.
• Navbar Blog Search Box. If you haven't disabled the navbar, here you can paste or type keywords which will be used to search your blog, directly - without requiring that your blog be indexed by the search engines.
• Blog Search Gadget. This will be any search gadget added to a blog by the owner. This could be a version of the navbar blog search, or a version of the browser search box, but against different search engines.

The navbar search (with the navbar visible) is the only predictable accessory.
Except for the navbar blog search box, there is no way to predict if, what, or where any of these boxes will look like or appear. The labeling, positioning, even whether a box is included, are all a matter of personal preference. Some personal preference is of the blog owner, other is of the blog reader / owner of the computer used for browsing.

In some browsers, the address box and search box are combined, with browser code interpreting (more or less reliably) whether a URL or search terms have been entered. This causes confusion when the person used to any one browser uses a different browser - or maybe the same brand browser, on another computer.

I could show this blog, in my browser - that would show this blog, in my browser.
I could add a picture here, of my browser, on my computer. But, that would simply be a picture of my browser, and would only confuse you. I arrange my browser to suit my preferences and taste - and just as surely as I know that everything which I write in my blog won't interest everyone, I know that how I arrange my browser won't interest everyone, either.

The navbar is intended as the single most predictable object on the screen, when viewing Blogger blogs.

Not all blogs even display the navbar.
Unfortunately, some blogs are setup with the navbar hidden, which prevents use of the navbar blog search. To compensate for this, some blog owners will add a blog search gadget.

Search gadgets, for Blogger blogs, come in a variety of designs. A browser search gadget may be the equivalent of the browser search window, of the navbar blog search window, or even may be customised so you can't tell what it does.

Then there is the direct search, vs the indexed search, to consider.
Besides understanding the blog search box (whether navbar or blog based), we need to note a major difference between searching content directly - and searching indexed content.

• Both a browser search box and a blog based custom search box will involve a search engine, which uses cached copies of every indexed blog and web site. The cached copies will be subject to search engine latency, causing discrepancies similar to SERPs referencing main page view.
• Blog direct searches, such as the navbar search box, and some custom search boxes, which will search the blog now, based upon what's in the blog, now.

If you changed the URL of your blog, it needs to be re indexed.
If your blog was just published to a custom domain, the blog will need to be re indexed under the new URL. You can accelerate the re indexing process, if you make some effort.

All of these details cause confusion, among many blog owners.
Considering all of these details, it's not surprising that there would be confusion, when people surf strange blogs and / or use strange browsers, maybe on strange computers. Possibly, by knowing the details, we can diagnose the questions from the confused bloggers.

Help Your Readers Search Your Blog

When your blog gets larger, you'll want your readers to be able to find the content easier - sometimes using more detail than can be found in the Archives index.

You can generally use Labels for a more comprehensive index of the blog contents - but both labels, and titles, index the posts based on your vision of the blog. What if you want your readers to view your blog, on their terms?

This is where the Navbar, with its search box, becomes useful.

The Navbar based search is a good choice, for most readers of the blog.

It's a good choice - assuming that you don't block the Navbar, and assuming that your readers like using the Navbar - and that the navbar based blog search is not broken.

You can use search accessories outside the navbar.

But you're not confined to using the Search box on the Navbar - you can make your own search box, and position it where you like.

Setup a new HTML / JavaScript gadget, to get a very simple search box for your blog. Use the "HTML/JavaScript" selection in "Basics".

Just copy the code - a simple 4 lines - to the new gadget.

<form action="/search" method="get">
<input name="q" type="text"/>
<input value="Search This Blog" type="submit"/>
</form>

You can add this gadget, in many places.

Having setup your new gadget, you can position it anywhere on the page. Or, you can have a search box inside a post, as I show above. See "Search This Blog", above - and "Search The Real Blogger Status", at the top of the sidebar?

And, there are still more possibilities.

You can get way more fancy, for instance search multiple blogs at once, using a Google Custom Search box, but for a 5 minute blog upgrade, this is all that you need.

• Search only the posts, in the one blog.
• Search your blog directly, not from search engine cache. No waiting for search engine updates.
• Search private blogs, with some chance for success.
• Display search results as part of the blog display, with all blog accessories and decorations visible.

This is very user friendly - your readers will appreciate it. And it's so easy to add.

Google Webmaster Tools And Label Searches

As a publisher of a Blogger blog, besides publishing articles, you have to know how those articles are being read.

Just as knowing who is reading your blog, you need to know who is indexing your blog. The Google Search Engine, which feeds 2/3 of the known major search engines, provides Google Webmaster Tools, so we can monitor how well our blogs are being indexed.

If you're going to use Google Webmaster Tools / Search Console effectively, you need to know how to interpret the reports.

Specifically, you need to know what reports show problems needing attention, and what reports advise us of problems avoided.

Representing the latter, we have a message in the list of URLs restricted by robots.txt, which can be found from a link in "Overview", or from "Diagnostics" - "Web Crawl". Recently, we see email from the Search Console team.

Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt



Note the carefully worded advice.

This means that Index coverage may be negatively affected in Google search results.

With a Blogger blog, "may be" should be "actually, is not".

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/search/label/Search Engines URL restricted by robots.txt

This list, when run against a blog which has a lot of labels, will be rather long. This will cause panic in the hearts of many. Fortunately, this is unnecessary panic.

The keyword here is

/search/label/

This shows us a label search that is blocked, intentionally by Blogger, so the search engines won't follow it.

Were the search engines to index a label search, they would be indexing the same posts in the blog, that they find from the sitemap. They would then penalise both the sitemap indexed content - and the label search indexed content - in their indexing, for "duplicate content".

With "duplicate content" penalties applied, your posts appear lower in the search results - and your blog gets less new visitors.

So, when you see "... /search/label/ ... URL restricted by robots.txt" in your access report, don't panic. This restriction is to your advantage.

Controlling The Search Engine Spiders

Most, but not all, blog owners eagerly anticipate the arrival, upon their blog, by the search engine spiders.

The spiders come to index your blog, when the search engines recognise your blog's existence in the Blogosphere.

For those blog owners who don't want their blogs indexed, Blogger provides the settings, in Settings - Basic - Privacy, "Add your blog to our listings?" (for internal Blogger spiders, and Blogger links) and "Let search engines find your blog?" (for external spiders).

The privacy settings control the content of the "robots.txt" file in the blog.

The spiders, when well behaved, read "robots.txt" for instructions.

The spiders, when interested, read "robots.txt" for instructions. You can modify "robots.txt", using the dashboard "Search preferences" wizard.

You make the privacy settings changes, and let Blogger maintain "robots.txt" on your behalf. Alternately, you can use "Settings" - "Search preferences", if you are daring.

These settings are at the blog level - one setting affects the entire blog. If you would like only a part of the blog protected, make a second blog (blogs are free), and include one blog in the other. If you would like specific URLs protected, use the URL removal tool in Google Webmaster Tools.

Read "Search Console" reports carefully, and learn the meanings.

If you use Google Webmaster Tools / Search Console, maybe to add a sitemap or otherwise analyse or maintain your blogs search engine relationship, you may see some interesting details

URL restricted by robots.txt (http://myblog.blogspot.com/search/label/mylabel)

and you'll generally have one of these notations for each label in the blog.

Those restrictions are normal. All label searches are restricted, so the search engines won't detect the label searches as containing duplicate content. Your blog shouldn't depend upon label searches for your readers to find each post.

Some search engines will index private blogs.

Interestingly, I note that the search engines can have access to blogs that require permission to read. Private blogs can't have blog feeds, but the search engines can still index them. The "robots.txt" file is advisory only; search engines may honour the files directives, or they may ignore the directives.