Old timer at a coffee shop told me he still hand-codes meta tags for every page

I was at a Starbucks in Portland last Tuesday and this gray-haired guy next to me laughed when I pulled up Ahrefs. He said he's been ranking sites since 1998 by just writing good tags and getting links from actual people. Has anyone else run into someone who swears by the old school methods?

3 comments

3 Comments

jackson.max6d ago

Honestly, the "writing good tags" part is not really the flex he thinks it is. Meta tags have basically been watered down for years, Google barely uses them for ranking anymore. I get the sentiment about getting links from real people, that part still matters a lot. But acting like hand-coding tags is some secret weapon in 2024 feels a little like bragging about using a flip phone in a smartphone world. Ngl, some of those old timers just refuse to admit the game has changed, even if their results are still fine.

gray3146d ago

Nah but you're right, the flip phone analogy is spot on. It works for them but only because they learned the game when that stuff actually mattered.

william_craig76d ago

Man that old timer sounds like @jackson.max's grandpa or something haha. I actually tried hand-coding meta tags once last year and it felt like I was trying to build a campfire with two sticks while everyone else has lighters. The part about getting links from real people that still works because relationships are always gonna matter in this business. But the whole "I hand code my tags" thing is like bragging you still use a paper map when Google Maps is right there. Don't get me wrong I still check my page titles and descriptions manually because I'm paranoid something will break. But yeah those old school guys act like SEO hasn't changed since the dial up era, even when their rankings are fine.