EQUTE — In a rare disclosure into how their search ranks pages, Google said they basically ignore meta tags — and have done so for a decade.

Google’s Mat Cutts explained the decision in a video.

Google doesn’t often reveal such insights into how their page ranking works, and this is a key factor and could mean a lot of people will stop spending so much time getting their meta tags high on the page.

Yahoo/Bing, on the other hand, do look to meta-tags and recommend using it in their search ranking guide.

Use a “keyword” meta-tag to list key words for the document. Use a distinct list of keywords that relate to the specific page on your site instead of using one broad set of keywords for every page.

So site owners still have incentive to keep their meta-tags relevant. It could, however, mean several tweaks to the header to better target Yahoo/Bing searches. Google will probably remain the dominant driver of search traffic, but a good ranking in Yahoo/Bing results certainly cannot hurt.