Meta Tagging

[Vardsy]

How long after adjusting meta tags on a webpage should you see some changes to the results of web searches?

[dwarfthrower]

Do search engines even still look at meta tags these days?

[Spingo]

That all depends on how often the itsy-bitsy-spiders come and visit your website. I find that google spiders my sites every 48-hours or so, so you should see some impact after that time...

But having said that, search engines don't seed metatags that highly as they used to - mainly because of the abuse that is seen. Take a ook at Zgeek's meta tags - most of them have little to do with the actual content of each page on the site...

[Vardsy]

Whats the best method for gaining a higher ranking in Search engines then?

Or can someone point me towards a tutorial that will help in this regard

[dwarfthrower]

All the search engines have different methods of ranking your page and they vary from time to time as the algoithms get felt out by submitters and new hacks are discovered to boost rankings.

The best way to achieve consistent rankings though is having actual content on your pages, sensible headings and sensible use of alt tags. Going overboard on any angle (Meta tags, alt text, hidden wordlists etc) is probably going to have a negative impact.

The other thing that seems to benefit is the pages that link to you... getting linked to from other pages tends to keep you pretty high up in the rankings.

Good (If a little dated) introductory tutorial here: http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/article.php/2167921

[Vardsy]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to dwarfthrower again.