Do meta tags affect how your website is ranked in a search engine? I remember a few years ago they used to, but people used to spam and their effect was reduced.
Well, they do affect what is shown when someone searches for your site, but in terms of seo i don't think they make much of a difference now. They are mainly for telling a bot what your site is about (roughly)
Not really. There are other (much better) ways of seoing (is that a word) your site. If you have the time, it dosn't hurt to put them in (unless you repeat keywords again and again in them)
You'd be better off just emboldening keywords in text instead of bothering with meta tags. They are much more helpful in terms of SEO
Well, they don't affect your sites ranking itself, but they can affect the keywords your site is centered on. I suppose if it means the same to you, add them.
Meta Tags do help your website get noticed,but it's a 1 click per IP that makes your website reach the top.
yahoo recommends metatags. You can do a test on the use of metatags yourself the next time you search.
1) Put in a search keyword phrase
2) Look at the search engine results
3) the meta tag title will be splatters with the keyword phrase.
4) The meta description also will list the keyword phrase
Today meta tags has little factor in SERP. What is more important is the content of the site.
Nope. Unfortunately not, they used to when Internet Search first became popular - but nowadays the search crawler will just search page content + additional image titles.
I dont think it does anything for increasing PR but if you have search on your site it can help with that