Are Neta Tags REALLY dead?

Hey all, Merry Christmas!

I am wondering if Mete Tags are really dead or not? I read some places that INSIST that you use them, and others that say they are not needed.

How many of you use meta tags and have good google PR, and how many of you DO NOT use them and STILL have good Google PR?

META tags are not dead. The meta description tag is still very important - google also uses it. Some smaller SEs still use keyword tags so keep them in. I still use metas for every website I build - simply for security and accessability reasons.

While, yes, many search engines still use Meta tags, they are starting to cut down on it now. Googlebot's usage of Meta tags is a lot less today than it was a few years ago. I think this is because people have been abusing the power of them, and spiders have found better, more efficient ways to get that kind of information. This doesn't mean you should get rid of them all together, though.

My PR is none of your business! Just kidding. I have a low PR, but getting a high one is not my priority, as my site is simply something me and my friends work on and share together. Keep in mind that PR and Meta Tags aren't neccessarily dependant on one another. Google calculates its PR based on several different things, but as far as I know, its main factor is how many other sites on the Internet are linked to yours. If you want a higher PR, purchase some advertising, and make your site "welcome" the bots, by doing something similar to what DevShed has done recently. (Making it easier for the bots to crawl your site.) There's a lot more stuff I could go into detail on.

For now, have a look at these links:
PageRank Explained
Basic SEO
PageRank in relation to Meta Tags <-- best link for your situation

Good luck.