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
-
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.
-
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.
-
I think you're right - if we can't find a reason for using them, best to ignore / remove it altogether.
-
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?
-
I really wouldn't worry about meta-keywords. Much better to spend the time on the content!
-
Search engines may still use it for discovery. Meaning simply answering the question: what should the page potentially rank for?
best, G
-
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?
-
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
-
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.
-
Thanks Gustav,
Is it only Google that this applies to or other search engines followed the same rule?
-
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
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
-
Unsolved Questions about travel industry keywords
My question is regarding my current learning of SEO and keyword research. I have been leaning towards Keyword Everywhere, SEMrush, and Google Keyword Planner for keyword research. What do you recommend? I know you might suggest Moz, but I'm looking for something that will enhance and help me find valuable keywords for the travel niche. If I sign up with Moz, will someone from the team help me with keyword research for the travel niche and my website? I haven't found any resources or lessons specifically focused on travel websites and their keywords.
Moz Pro | | RavenBhutan0 -
What's the best way to search keywords for Youtube using Moz Keyword explorer?
I want to optimize my youtube channel using identified keywords, but I'm concerned that the keywords I'm identifying work well for SERP's but might not be how people search in Youtube. How do a distinguish my keywords to be targeted for Youtube?
Moz Pro | | Dustless0 -
MoZ vs SEMRush - Keyword Difficulty and Keyword With Low Competition.
Hi, My question is very focussed regarding these 2 tools. Is it correct to understand that MoZ tells keyword difficulty and not which keyword is easy to compete. And SEMRush tells which keyword is easy to compete but does not tell which keywords are difficult to compete? I mean one (Moz) misses the one part and the other (SEMRush) misses the other part. Hope some will enlighten me to the point. Best
Moz Pro | | Sequelmed0 -
Any Other PAID Keyword Difficulty Tool?
Why is The Keyword Difficulty Tool so unreliable? Anyone know of another PAID Keyword Difficulty Tool? Right now I feel like I am getting ripped off for $99 a month for a tool that I have no confidence in...PLEASE HELP ANYONE
Moz Pro | | Local-Interactive0 -
Is there any way to move keywords from one Campaign to another?
We recently moved content off a subdomain onto our main www subdomain. Each of these was previously tracked as its own campaign. Now that the content is consolidated, I'd like to move the keywords that we were tracking on the first campaign over to the second. I don't see an option to migrate, or export/import keywords. Is there any (non-manual) way to do this? Thanks
Moz Pro | | doxo2 -
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 | | Rokas0 -
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 | | anthonytjm0 -
Is there a way to see what keywords users of my site are using to find it online?
Since Google Analytics no longer shows the keywords used by people to find a site online, does the SEOMoz toolset provide somethng to show this data?
Moz Pro | | Mionkeybot0