Value of meta tag analyizer tool

[cranky_hippie]

How much value should one place on these things? I used the one at widexl.com and the results for my product pages were not good. Meta tags and title are OK but description and keywords were not.

From this I gathered that the first few words in a description are key to the search engines. So in checking this out with sites that come up fairly high in search results, many don't seem to be using any more relevant beginning keywords than I am.

Is it just that I am penalized because my product descriptions are too long or ARE the first words key?

TIA.

I am SO confused.  ???

[regic]

Meta tags and title are OK but description and keywords were not.

I don't think their tool is working right.  I checked one of our sites and the analysis for description and keywords said "Found no description meta tag.", "Found no keywords meta tag".

The title metatag and the description metatag are the most important metatags for search engines.  Just write an accurate description that contains relevant keywords but is a sentence.  Google doesn't even index the keywords metatag.

Is it just that I am penalized because my product descriptions are too long

The keywords metatag Widexl is analyzing isn't the same thing as the keywords you use in your product description.  As long as you aren't repeating yourself in your product description it's not too long.

[cranky_hippie]

Just write an accurate description that contains relevant keywords but is a sentence.

But is the FIRST sentence the most important to the search engines? This is what I am having the most trouble "getting."

And thank you, regic!

[jezebel]

But is the FIRST sentence the most important to the search engines?

The overall page content is what's important. Search spiders don't read a page the same way as a human.

http://community.tuliptools.com/index.php?action=static&staticpage=8

[cranky_hippie]

The overall page content is what's important. Search spiders don't read a page the same way as a human.

That's what I thought BEFORE I used the tool. Afterwords, I doubted that I had the first clue. 

Maybe I overanalyze....period.

Thanks all!