Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. Moz Tools
    3. Moz Pro
    4. Meta keywords no longer in use

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Meta keywords no longer in use

    Moz Pro
    4
    11
    5691
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • coremediadesign
      coremediadesign last edited by

      Can someone point me to the official article explaining why meta keywords are no longer taken into account by search engines please?

      I know Moz has indicated that search engines ignore them, but I would like to read a bit more about it - what was the reason behind it and since when.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • vforvinnie
        vforvinnie @coremediadesign last edited by

        One of the main reasons they stopped looking at them is because it was easy to spam and stuff the tags.  Any site can easily stuff the meta tags, so it's an unreliable ranking factor.

        A few years back it was beneficial for when directories/info sites would scrape your site.  When they list your site they would use those keywords for categories, and possibly even anchor text.  You don't see it as much anymore, especially since that scraped information is just junk content.

        The way I see it, it can hurt your site to have the KWs.  Your competitors can easily see what keywords you are going after (which they probably can anyway by looking at a given page).  Giving them one spot to check on every page though will make it much easier for them to benefit from your keyword research.

        Some people like to use meta tags as product tags on their site.  So if you search for "black cats" on a cat website, anything with the meta tag black cats would come up first.  It also works for when you want to make a black cat page that features every single black cat related item on your site.  Of course, you can just do internal tagging for this, and don't need to use the meta tags.

        Moral of the story: not much use for them.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • coremediadesign
          coremediadesign @DougRoberts last edited by

          I think you're right - if we can't find a reason for using them, best to ignore / remove it altogether.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • coremediadesign
            coremediadesign @Gustav-Northclick last edited by

            From what I understand algorithm would figure this out from the title, description and content.

            I thought more of any other potential use such as advanced search where you can select specific tags to look within - did anyone hear of any place they can be used except for SEO purposes?

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • DougRoberts
              DougRoberts @coremediadesign last edited by

              I really wouldn't worry about meta-keywords. Much better to spend the time on the content!

              coremediadesign 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Gustav-Northclick
                Gustav-Northclick last edited by

                Search engines may still use it for discovery. Meaning simply answering the question: what should the page potentially rank for?

                best, G

                coremediadesign 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • coremediadesign
                  coremediadesign last edited by

                  Is there any other area that meta keywords could be used - for any other purpose perhaps?

                  From what I understand it is only ignored, but not penalised unless stuffed with keywords?

                  DougRoberts vforvinnie 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • Gustav-Northclick
                    Gustav-Northclick last edited by

                    I usually say that if Google does it the others are doing it as well.

                    So:

                    The meta keywords tag is not in use for SEO with regard to Google and Yahoo.

                    I'm pretty sure Bing doesn't either.

                    Best, G

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • DougRoberts
                      DougRoberts last edited by

                      Here's a post about how Bing views keywords:

                      The Meta Keywords Tag Lives At Bing & Why Only Spammers Should Use It

                      So, over-stuffing your keywords isn't totally ignored and can cause a penalty on Bing.

                      Meta keywords were so abused in the past that they could no longer be used to accurately tell what the page was about. As a relevance/ranking signal it became worthless.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • coremediadesign
                        coremediadesign @Gustav-Northclick last edited by

                        Thanks Gustav,

                        Is it only Google that this applies to or other search engines followed the same rule?

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • Gustav-Northclick
                          Gustav-Northclick last edited by

                          Here's Googles post about it:

                          http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html

                          Hope this was what you were looking for.

                          Best, G

                          coremediadesign 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • 1 / 1
                          • First post
                            Last post

                          Got a burning SEO question?

                          Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                          Start my free trial


                          Browse Questions

                          Explore more categories

                          • Moz Tools

                            Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                          • SEO Tactics

                            Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                          • Community

                            Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                          • Digital Marketing

                            Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                          • Research & Trends

                            Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                          • Support

                            Connect on product support and feature requests.

                          • See all categories

                          Related Questions

                          • chachakhota

                            What are Keywordbasket.com & Keyword-suggest-tool.com. Competitors have Tons of these

                            My client is in the Custom Scale Model industry.  They build Custom Aircraft Models, Custom Ship Models and more. Their competitor's Backlinks reports have a Ton of metrics coming from: http://www.keywordbasket.com  and https://www.keyword-suggest-tool.com There is line after line of these entries in the backlink report.  As much as 50 line entries.  what exactly is happening here?  Are they manually using these tools to generate search entries and caching this data in the form of Backlinks?  Please explain.   is this a Gray Hat Tactic?

                            Moz Pro | | chachakhota
                            0
                          • Ben-R

                            Why Only Our Homepage Can Be Crawled Showing a Redirect Message as the Meta Title

                            Hello Everyone, So recently when we checked our domain using a Moz Crawl Test and Screaming Frog only the homepage comes up and the meta title says “You are being redirected to…”. We have several pages that used to come up and when submitting them to GSC no issues come up. The robots.txt file looks fine as well. We thought this might be ‘server’ related but it’s a little out of our field of expertise so we thought we would find out if anyone has any experience with this (ideas of reasons, how to check…etc.) or any potential suggestions. Any extra insight would be really appreciated. Please let us know if there is anything we could provide further details for that might. Looking forward to hearing from all of you! Thanks in advance. Best,

                            Moz Pro | | Ben-R
                            0
                          • trumpfinc

                            A question on keywords that rank 51+

                            Good afternoon everyone. I wanted to pose a question to the group about keywords and the "on-page optimization -  grade a page tool." I have a list of keywords that I am trying to rank for. Some of them are not ranked in the top 50, so on the keyword ranking tool it gives you the 51+ message in the rank column. For the items that are ranked I can try to improve them by looking at grade a page and typing in the URL and keyword. It will then give me a score and suggestions on how to improve it. With that being said, is there an easy way to find out which pages I should be optimizing those keywords which rank at 51+ for,  besides typing the keywords in Google and seeing what URL it associates with the specific keyword? I hope the question above is clear.

                            Moz Pro | | trumpfinc
                            0
                          • garypropellernet

                            What is the logarithmic scale used for domain authority?

                            I want to quantify how much better a score of 80 is compared to 60. Or 60 compared to 30 etc.... What is the logarithm base? Thanks, Rik

                            Moz Pro | | garypropellernet
                            0
                          • Rokas

                            How to track all domain keywords?

                            Hello, lets say I have domain www.example.com I want to track rankings of www.example.com/product and www.example.com/anotherproduct with different keywords, so do I have to set up 2 different campaigns? Or is it possilble to track whole root domain with paths? Thanks!

                            Moz Pro | | Rokas
                            0
                          • eseider

                            What user agent is used by SEOMOZ crawler?

                            We have a pretty tight robots.txt file in place to only allow the major search engines.  I do not want to block SEOMOZ.ORG from being able to crawl the site so I want to make sure the user agent is open.

                            Moz Pro | | eseider
                            0
                          • anthonytjm

                            What do you use for site audit

                            What tools do you use for conducting a site audit? I need to do an audit on a site and the seomoz web crawler and on page optimization will takes days if not a full week to return any results. In past Ive used other tools that I could run on the fly and they would return broken links, missing htags, keyword density, server information and more. Curious as to what you all use and what you may recommend to use in conjunction with the moz tools.

                            Moz Pro | | anthonytjm
                            0
                          • ZakGottlieb71

                            What kind of keyword difficulty should I be aiming for when launching an new site?

                            I know that words in their 20's or 30's would be ideal, but it's proving hard for me to find relevant keywords with such scores (just a couple with scores in the 30's). Is going for words between 40-50 a waste of time? Thanks.

                            Moz Pro | | ZakGottlieb71
                            1

                          Get started with Moz Pro!

                          Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                          Start my free trial
                          Products
                          • Moz Pro
                          • Moz Local
                          • Moz API
                          • Moz Data
                          • STAT
                          • Product Updates
                          Moz Solutions
                          • SMB Solutions
                          • Agency Solutions
                          • Enterprise Solutions
                          Free SEO Tools
                          • Domain Authority Checker
                          • Link Explorer
                          • Keyword Explorer
                          • Competitive Research
                          • Brand Authority Checker
                          • Local Citation Checker
                          • MozBar Extension
                          • MozCast
                          Resources
                          • Blog
                          • SEO Learning Center
                          • Help Hub
                          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                          • How-to Guides
                          • Moz Academy
                          • API Docs
                          About Moz
                          • About
                          • Team
                          • Careers
                          • Contact
                          Why Moz
                          • Case Studies
                          • Testimonials
                          Get Involved
                          • Become an Affiliate
                          • MozCon
                          • Webinars
                          • Practical Marketer Series
                          • MozPod
                          Connect with us

                          Contact the Help team

                          Join our newsletter
                          Moz logo
                          © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                          • Accessibility
                          • Terms of Use
                          • Privacy

                          Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.