Some SEO pundits and professionals claim that META description tags don't make a difference to Google and other search engines. These people are clearly idiots. I have substantial evidence to refute their claims. Let us take for example the directory website, MerchantCircle. I know that META tags make a difference here's why:

• I changed the damn META tags myself.
• the text you see in the Google results does not appear anywhere in the body of the page, only the META.
• search queries that previously did not return MerchantCircle links now have MerchantCircle in the top 10 results.

If META tags don't work, why would they possibly be showing up in the the Google results? Again, you META naysayers are, as they say in Latin, retardus maximus.

Original shitty META description

Is {company.name} your business? Network with other local businesses in {company.city}, {company.state} to bring new customers and increase visibility in your community.

New awesome META description

These are searches (non-random) for 10 popular businesses in Ann Arbor. We are sitting nicely in the 1st or 2nd page.

[#] SEARCH TERM (placement)
-- Google's search result text snippet --

[1] "brown jug ann arbor" (5)
Brown Jug Restaurant, 1204 S University Ave, Ann Arbor, MI. Tel: 734-761-3355. Come to MerchantCircle to get Brown Jug Restaurant information, coupons, ...

[2] "dominick's ann arbor" (7)
Dominicks, 812 Monroe St, Ann Arbor, MI. Tel: 734-662-5414. Come to MerchantCircle to get Dominicks information, coupons, and reviews.

[3] "charleys ann arbor" (4) -- but we do not qualify for "charley's ann arbor"
Conor Oneills Irish Pub & Restaurant, 318 S Main St, Ann Arbor, MI. Tel: 734-665-2968. Come to MerchantCircle to get Conor Oneills Irish Pub & Restaurant ...

[4] "china gate ann arbor" (5)
MerchantCircle.com -- China Gate Restaurant of 1201 S University Ave, Ann Arbor, MI. Phone: 734-668-2445. 40 Years' Experience, Dine-In Or Take-Out Service,

[5] "connor o'neills ann arbor" (4)
"Conor O'Neills is the best for the ultimate Irish experience nestled in the cozy downtown of Ann Arbor, MI. Always greeted with a friendly Irish face, ...

[6] "pizza bob's ann arbor" (3)
Pizza Bobs, 814 S State St, Ann Arbor, MI. Tel: 734-665-4517. Come to MerchantCircle to get Pizza Bobs information, coupons, and reviews.

[7] "blimpy ann arbor" (7)
Blimpy Burger Krazy Jims, 551 S Division St, Ann Arbor, MI. Tel: 734-663-4590. Come to MerchantCircle to get Blimpy Burger Krazy Jims information, coupons

[8] "ashleys ann arbor" (9)
MerchantCircle.com -- Ashleys Restaurant Incorporated of 338 S State St, Ann Arbor, MI. Phone: 734-996-9191. 34, 70 Beers On Tap, Beer, Cherry Stout, ...

[9] "angelos ann arbor" (9)
Angelos Restaurant is located at 1100 Catherine St Ann Arbor, MI. Phone: 734-761-8996. . Post a message and leave a review for Angelos Restaurant.

[10] "old town ann arbor" (3)
Old Town, 122 W Liberty St, Ann Arbor, MI. Tel: 734-662-9291. Come to MerchantCircle to get Old Town information, coupons, and reviews.

The website I work for is suffering some serious consequences because we've dropped into Google's "supplemental result" index (commonly referred to as "Google Hell"). I don't know if it really is Google hell but I wasted a couple work-days theorizing and researching on how to pull our pages out of purgatory. I gleaned these ideas from some other websites which I unfortunately have long since forgotten so cannot provide attribution (sorry). This is all conjecture, however, because I don't have any proof that these methods actually work.

1. Varied and semi-random META descriptions
2. increase quantity of META keywords
3. put important keyword combinations closer together
4. try to fake in some random natural language text

Varied and semi-random META descriptions

One thing you may notice is that Google really does pickup META descriptions. Lots of people say that META doesn't matter anymore but I think it does because sometimes META descriptions appear in the match summaries for result links.

If all of your pages have identical or substantially similar META tags, you appear lazy and pages become obviously generic. Why would anyone search for generic bullshit pages written by a machine? Thus, I think having overly generic and identical content in your pages (semantic and META markup) hurts you.

increase quantity and quality of META keywords

I figure if you can put in a crapload of good keywords why the hell shouldn't it help? As long as it isn't the same keywords and the keywords are actually in your pages it can't hurt to have a bunch of them in your META.

put important keyword combinations closer together

This is about having the right words near each other. If you can possibly craft your language around using the same phrase a few times within the page it has to match better than just having the words spread out at random across a page. Duh. I'm guessing its better to have related variations of the phrase within the page than having only a single phrase repeated over and over. That would make it more natural sounding AND give you better keyword coverage on related terms. Hellz yeah.

try to fake in some random natural language text

As mentioned in the points above we try to increase our keyword coverage by using meaningful variations of target phrase. At the very least it makes the page interesting to read and hopefully search engines are understanding context of a page through some algorithmic magic. If this is really the case -- and I think it is -- the less your pages read like a robot wrote it, the more likely a robot will like it. I would characterize this as self-discriminatory by robots against other robots. whoa -- that has a wierd deepness to it that makes me surprised I'm not high or something.