Really interesting. Even if Google doesn't read it I see it as a good way to ensure alignment of your page content and overarching message.
Not to mention I think Bing does use them.
Image: Bing on a fairly popular site we manage. Comparison is between June and July 2009.
Bing’s passing Yahoo! in most of our site’s metrics. What’s really interesting is how fast it’s risen compared to MSN which used to linger in 3rd place on the same sites.
Bing is worth understanding if you’re in the world of interactive marketing.
One of the more interesting things Bing does is show a content preview for a website in your search results. From a really superficial couple of tests it looks like Bing takes the first <h1> tag and the content of a subsequent <p> to build this preview. It also grabs a few links. This feature gives marketers an opportunity to really tailor their page to get a clickthrough in the search results. It provides a much larger window to expand summary copy normally taken from <meta> descriptions or page content. When we’re planning sites now we’re going to be giving these two elements special consideration.
