Can you expound why i have to avoid using meta keywords?
-
I'm using the on page report card and it tells me that i have to avoid using meta keywords.I'm a little bit confused. I thought that it's important to use it all the time so search engine can better index the site. if I use SEO Quake it will tell me in the diagnostic test that I need to input keywords.
-
"Bing looks at meta keywords as a spam signal and not a ranking signal."
That's something I hand't heard before. Great.
I haven't been inserting keywords for a long time, after hearing that they were no help for SEO. However, in the beginning we were using them on some pages. We have several hundred pages on our WordPress site. I guess I will have to go look for a plugin to remove them. Can anyone recommend one for that purpose? We're built on Thesis (I'm sorry to say, now) which doesn't play well with a lot of the mainstream SEO plugins like the one from Yoast.
Thanks,
- Tim
-
It's unlikely that your keywords will give away some huge secret, but at the very least it will make the job a tad easier on your competitors. And because the tag has zero benefit, why would you want to even give a small advantage to your competitors?
-
I don't buy the - "it gives competitors what you are trying to rank for" arguement. Hell, all you have to do is go to a page title or look around a bit on some text and it should be glaringly obviously what they are trying to rank for.
.02
-
Google doesn't support meta keywords. Bing looks at meta keywords as a spam signal and not a ranking signal.
So there really isn't any reason to use them.
Read the full article about Bing and Meta Keywords here: http://searchengineland.com/the-meta-keywords-tag-lives-at-bing-why-only-spammers-should-use-it-96874
-
Search Engines do not use meta-keywords for ranking.................
I would never use all the keywords you are targeting in that meta it makes less work for you competition to outrank you
-
Search engines stopped using the keywords tag a long time ago, presumably because it was being abused by just about every single webmaster in the world.
So, if you still use it, you're getting zero SEO benefit plus you're saying to your competitors "Hey guys, here are the keywords that I'm trying to rank for. I just thought I'd let you know in case you want to compete with me for those ranking spots." Not a good idea.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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.
Related Questions
-
? Keyword stuffing
I have a new website. Did "on page grading". Although the page received a grade of A the only area that did not receive a check mark was key word stuffing. It recommended I not use keyword more that 15 times but I only counted 11 uses of the key phrase "breast augmentation." However the phrase is also used in alt tag of images which would take me over 15. Are alt tag on images counted and is this a concern? I tried to use "augmentation mammaplasty" to reduce the use of the phrase "breast augmentation" but will use of "augmentation" and "breast" alone also cause the count to increase for the phrase "breast augmentation"
On-Page Optimization | | wianno1680 -
URL Keyword Variations?
I'm aware that keywords in the url aren't as effective as they used to be, but I'm still convinced that they do have a significant impact (based on results in one of the niches I'm in). My question is, will variations of keywords and "hidden" keywords have as much value as an exact keyword? For example, let's say that I'm trying to target the keyword "day." Will including variations like "daily" in the url work just as well? What about a brand name that includes the keyword hidden in its name, like "Dayest"? And, as a followup question, does including "stop" words have any effect? For example, if I'm trying to target the keyword "Day of the Month", would including "day" and "month" in the url be just as effective as including "day of the month"?
On-Page Optimization | | JABacchetta0 -
KeyWord Density?
What is an acceptable density for a keyword? It's wise to push it as close to spam without sacrificing user experience, correct? I read an article on SeoMoz (outdated I think) that mentioned 6%. If it's a keyword phrase, do you have to make sure you don't go over the density level of a particular word in the phrase. If it's a three word phrase, do you have to not use any one word more than X% or just monitor the exact keyword.
On-Page Optimization | | JML11791 -
How long can rich snippets be?
How long (how many words) can a description tag of a rich snippets code?
On-Page Optimization | | seoflorida0 -
Can I use the first sentence of my page content as a meta description tag as well?
I just want to copy my content on the page and use the first or as well the second sentence of the content self for my meta description tag. Is that OK? Or should the Meta description tag be different?
On-Page Optimization | | paulinap19830 -
Negatives to using custom sub domain?
So - being photographers, we have our main website, but also, we use a hosted service for all our client galleries (www.zenfolio.com) So, in effect, we have two websites: Our main informational website Our client gallery/proofing website The client gallery has back links to our main website - so, when people are viewing their gallery, they can easily get back to our main site. We also have thrown a few of our preferred keywords in there for SEO purposes. The gallery has thousands of pages which link back to the main site. So.. the client gallery URL can either be: http://ourbusinessname.zenfolio.com OR we can have it so it uses our own domain, such as: http://gallery.ourbusinessname.com The question is, which domain name will benefit the back links more? Our custom subdomain (which links to our main domain) or, using the Zenfolio domain (which is external to our site). Or, is there no real difference either way? Or.. do I make no sense?
On-Page Optimization | | blitzna100