Recently I have received some questions about how Google uses (or more accurately, doesn’t use) the “keywords” meta tag in ranking web search results.
Meta tags are a great way for web owners to provide search engines with information about their sites.
Besides everything else, Google understands the following meta tags (and related items):
| <meta name=”description” content=”A description of the page” /> | This tag provides a short description of the page. In some situations this description is used as a part of the snippet shown in the search results. More information |
| <title>The Title of the Page</title> | While technically not a meta tag, this tag is often used together with the “description”. The contents of this tag are generally shown as the title in search results (and of course in the user’s browser). More information |
Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions are pretty much the most important onsite SEO you can fix.
But how about Meta Keywords? Marketing Easy asked Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land what he thinks:
Danny Sullivan:
“If there’s anything I particularly hate when it comes to SEO, it’s the meta keywords tag.
I so wish it had never been invented. It’s practically useless, yet people still obsess over it.
The subject doesn’t go away! I wrote an interesting article in 2007 that is still relevant. Overall, here’s the best advice I can offer anyone dealing with this tag. If you begin to feel confused, concern, tired or uncertain when pondering it, SKIP THE TAG ENTIRELY. It’s not going to hurt you to not have it, and it’s not worth the time fretting about it.”
The article is Meta Tag 101 and can be found on Search Engine Land website.
Little history about Meta Keywords.
About a decade ago, search engines judged pages only on the content of web pages, not any so-called “off-page” factors such as the links pointing to a web page.
In those days, keyword meta tags quickly became an area where someone could stuff often-irrelevant keywords without typical visitors ever seeing those keywords.
Because the keywords meta tag was so often abused, many years ago Google began disregarding the keywords meta tag.
Nowadays it’s useless.
Listen to me – Don’t bother using it, you will be losing your time and you’ll be giving away information for competitors.
Hopefully all? the fake SEO experts out there will stop banging on about it now.
Cheers
Lucio Ribeiro
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
What about for Yahoo?
They still appear to give some consideration to keywords meta. That alone could be enough of a reason to keep it on your pages?
Does it only for Google?How about the other Search engine like Yahoo and Bing does it emphasize the value of keywords meta tag?We as an SEO depends on meta keywords for off page optmization
Andre,
Meta keywords are not useful, accept it or not. It’s not half decision.
Seriously, its lost time and not benefitial to SEO.
NBeilieve me