Description Meta Tag - Best Way To Use It?

Hello, me again

I was wondering about the description meta tag.

I've been in the habit of making this a paragraph of quite a number of words (maybe up to 200 in the hope that it works well with search engines. That way I can cram in a few key words that reinfoce the text on the page and get a few words in that I couldn't get to fit in the text of the page text - if you know what I mean!

I've been told by a professional (self proclaimed) that I'm doing totally the wrong thing and that it should be no more than a sentence.

As the description tag is one of the few that search engines look at (is this correct?) I'm wondering the best way to utilise it for maxiimum effect i.e. help with search engine rankings.

Thank you for all replies and thoughts, very much appreciated.

AIUI search engines look at the meta tags and content of the page they are on, if words appear in the meta tag that don't appear in the content of the page, they start to mark your website down. Each tag needs to be seen something like 3 times in the content of the page, but it's not going to work with words like is, and, it etc...
With the description tag, I usually just throw in the first sentance that appears on the page, but I'm not too sure if that is the right thing to do...

Hi

As the description tag is one of the few that search engines look at (is this correct?)

As far as Google go, not correct. The description tag plays no part in indexing/ranking. They do often use this for the snippet in search results, either wholly or in part but are not obliged to. Best to make the tag highly relevant to the page content, not a repeat of the title tag and not too long, maybe one good sentence or a couple of shorter ones. The only benefit the tag has is possibly attracting search clicks, so make that the aim. Cramming the tag could also conceivably be seen as a spam signal if your site ever came up for manual review.

Incidentally, the title tag is about the only part of the head that has much relevance to search returns, again providing this is page relevant and not spammy. All meta tags are ignored as far as indexing/ranking goes. Most you see are in reality pointless, no use to search engines and don't really do anything else, or just restate the default.

In reply to a post by smiffy12:

Hello, me again

I was wondering about the description meta tag.

I've been in the habit of making this a paragraph of quite a number of words (maybe up to 200 in the hope that it works well with search engines. That way I can cram in a few key words that reinfoce the text on the page and get a few words in that I couldn't get to fit in the text of the page text - if you know what I mean!

I've been told by a professional (self proclaimed) that I'm doing totally the wrong thing and that it should be no more than a sentence.

As the description tag is one of the few that search engines look at (is this correct?) I'm wondering the best way to utilise it for maxiimum effect i.e. help with search engine rankings.

Thank you for all replies and thoughts, very much appreciated.

The abuse of hidden text and then meta tags lead actually to the downfall of Altavista as the no1 search engine(and in paid porn links).

So these are frowned apon. Yes sure use them but don't rely on them same with back linking etc. Ie don't ever use a single form of "tagging" or seo avenue.