The HTML Keyword tag

[Former_Member]

I don't want to confuse anyone but this thread isn't about Etsy tags and keywords. I'm asking Mary specifically about the contents of the <keyword> tag in my page source. We don't have much control over that here - we get 13 tags and that's what goes in there.

In my standalone shop I can have as many keyword tags as I want to and I have some questions before I start them and I'm sure that I'll have more along the way.

- Does the keyword tag really matter anymore? I've heard that it was so abused that google doesn't rely on it for useful information.

- Is there a safe number of them to use so that google doesn't see it as keyword spamming?

- Do you get dinged for repetition in order not to break up keyword strings, for example "plus size sweater,plus size cardigan,plus size sweater coat,white cardigan, blah blah blah"?

- Is an underscore in a tag meaningful and is it considered to be a space or is that just how the CSV file from Etsy imports the multi-word tags?

- Does the order of tags matter?

I'm sure that I'll have more when it comes to the shop and section pages but those are it for now.

[Former_Member]

Wow....great questions. I will come back to this and look for Mary's answers.

[Former_Member]

Thanks for asking that Karen, I took all the underscores out, but don't know if that would make a difference or not.
I too am waiting for Mary's reply.

[Former_Member]

Hi,

The keyword tag was very important about 10 years ago but the search engines stopped using it as it became a place web site owners used stuff with every possible keyword they could think of. I remember seeing keywords tags with 50, 100, or more keywords.

Recently the keyword tag seems to have become a resource for the search engines to use when they follow search strings on web sites that use search extensively. The keyword tag, though, is not back with any great importance.

It does not hurt to include it on each web page, but only use the keywords that are relevant to that web page, not for the entire web site.

We like to have concrete guidelines but Google is never specific about numbers or percentages. Just use words that are appropriate for each web page and you should be okay.

There is no penalty for repeating the same word in multiple keyword phrases.

All punctuation is ignored by the search engines. Underscores and dashes as seen the same way as spaces. The underscores that Etsy adds for the CVS files are not seen by Google.

The order of the keywords in the keyword tag does not matter. The order of the keywords in the tags on Etsy for Etsy's search do not seem to matter.

I hope everyone is enjoying Superbowl Sunday, with or without the football game watching. The Puppy Super Bowl on Animal Planet is always cute.

[Former_Member]

Thanks Mary. I love my husband so much - I didn't even realize that the superbowl was on yesterday until I saw it here.

Here's my first pass at my basic tag format - can anyone see a problem or think of anything else that you would want to know about a sweater or search terms I haven't considered yet? (The words at the end are all placeholders.)
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Plus size clothing,clothing plus size, plus size sweater,sweater plus size,plus size sweaters,sweaters plus size,womens sweater,sweaters women, materials,sizes,style,length,colors,other features
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[GraceEarrings]

Hi Karen,
nice to meet you, I am Grace.
don't know a thing about computers / technical side of thing,
are these tags for etsy or for your other website?

if I were a buyer,
in addition to "women", I may also use the search word :
misses
cardigan
full figure size
traditional fit & classic style
( I was told they mean anything "non junior " lol )
what do you think?

[Former_Member]

Have you looked through your list of suggested keywords from Google's Adwords research? I usually find at least a few new good phrases in that list.

[Former_Member]

here are a few ideas:

mohair sweater
wool sweater
red sweater
blue sweater (etc with more colors)
sweater 1X
sweater 2X (etc with more sizes)

[Former_Member]

I have to stop doing this so early because I didn't even include a few that I routinely use like handmade and designer. My new shop only has the plus sizes so I don't need to worry about misses sizes there. Thanks for all of the suggestions. I'll check the terms that everyone has mentioned. Most of the placeholder words that I have in there will cover the colors, sizes and materials but I might have missed adding "sweater" to them.

I had an interesting discussion this week with a group of plus size women on a forum and they let me pick their brains a bit about how they search for clothing. Virtually all of them start with "Plus size whatever" because 99% of what's out there isn't going to come in their size so there is no point in looking at it all and getting frustrated. IIRC that's how I searched when I wore plus sizes too. This was a small group that all fit the same general demographic though so I don't know how true it would hold across the spectrum.

[Former_Member]

Here's my next pass at a boilerplate set of tags. The last few are placeholders for the style (cardigan, etc), size, materials and color and features like hoods and they'll all be different. I have so many now that it feels like spam but they all apply. Do you see anything google will hate, Mary?

_________________________________________

plus size sweater, sweater plus size, plus size sweaters, sweaters plus size, plus size clothing, clothing plus size, plus size clothes, clothes plus size, plus size womens clothing, plus size clothing for women, full figure clothing, full figured clothing, womens sweater, sweaters women, handmade sweater, designer sweater, plus size designer clothing, designer plus size clothing, stylish plus size, plus size fashion, fashion plus size, junior plus size, materials, sweater style,style sweater, size sweater, length, colors, other features

[Former_Member]

Google would not "hate" any of your keywords but the list looks long to me. Can you spread your keywords around by uding different keyword for each page of your web site?

[Former_Member]

Absolutely. I think that all of the ones that refer to clothes or clothing and everything plural should primarily go into the main shop and section areas and not into every item. I'm just about done with redoing all of my pictures and descriptions for all of my items for both shops and then I have to go over all of the shop and section level SEO, rewrite 2 sets of profiles, set up some policies and I'll be ready to open. Then the testing begins...