meta tags for google vs meta tags open graph for facebook

Question

I have a large site and I have a question over meta tags.

For example, I have meta title, description and keywords as has always been known, these labels are essential for SEO.

With the facebook new open graph I have this in my head:

<meta property="og:title" content="Advertising">
<meta property="og:description" content="description advertising">
<meta property="og:type" content="website">
<meta property="og:url" content="url">
<meta property="og:site_name" content="mi_site_name">
.
.
.
and more meta og: if you want add more....

My questions are:

Can I work with both (meta tags for google and meta tags open graph for facebook)? how it affects the seo? Google penalizes you if you add og meta tags? is best to use the meta keywords for google or use open graph for facebook?

Thank you

Solution 1

You can have meta tags for Google and the other search engines as well as Facebook in the same page without one affecting the other. Having Facebook meta tags will not affect your rankings (and for that matter neither will regular meta tags) or get you penalized.

Solution 2

It is possible to use both, however be careful to not create conflicting meta that can lead to bizarre results.

Based on my own experience, Google will use og:title on its index, meaning you must think twice before creating a <title> different from your <meta>.

As part of a project I've used used

<meta property="og:title" content="Key and Word | XYZ">

and

<title>SEO Friendly Intro - Key and Word | XYZ</title>

To my surprise Google was suddenly displaying the site results as: Key and Word | XYZ instead of the SEO Friendly Intro - Key and Word | XYZ

Solution 3

Google use the og:title and og:content and will have a precedence over title and description although preferred way is using schema.org

https://developers.google.com/+/web/snippet/

A post to Google+ that include a link renders a preview, or snippet, that contains the page title, a brief description of the page, and a thumbnail image. These pieces of data are extracted from the shared URL's content in one of four ways, listed in order of precedence:

• Schema.org microdata (recommended)
• Open Graph protocol
• Title and meta "description" tags
• Best guess from page content (not recommended)

I am sure facebook will be able to read this content as effectively as og:title and og:content.

Comments

[Janos Pasztor]

Google now also uses og:site_name in the search index. Not sure in what manner though because it's inconsistent.

[Kamafeather]

Still relevant? And is there any reference about Goggle using og:site_name or og:title? This SO page seems to be the only place mentioning it.

[Kamafeather]

Note: Google+ uses og:title. Google Search Engine doesn't (correct me if I am wrong).