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 Keyword Tags
-
What is the word on Meta Keyword Tags? Are they good to have, or bad?
Our biggest competitor seems to have them.
-
I've had SEO consultants swear that you should still fill out the meta keywords tag because some search engine in a galaxy far, far away is apparently still giving it some clout. I say leave it blank. The search engines that matter won't give you anything positive out of it, and you never want to find yourself in a position where you're actually getting dinged for having that field stuffed with too many keywords, or having the same keywords duplicated across every page.
I also agree with Donna that it's making it easier for your competitors to see what you're targeting.
If you ever have a client who demands to know why you're not including meta keywords, you can show them this blog post directly from Google that pretty definitively states that they have no ranking value: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html
-
Adding to the above responses. Just because of the fact that Google does not use the keywords meta tag for ranking purposes at this point in time, populating it with too many and irrelevant keywords/phrases can do more harm as doing so is nothing but abusing the tag and moreover it clearly conveys the intention of the webmaster which is none other than to manipulate the search results and there by to rank high for those keywords/phrases.
So you better leave this tag empty if your CMS generates the tag automatically.
Best regards,
Devanur Rafi
-
The only thing they are good for is letting the competition know what keywords you are targeting on your pages. So, assuming you aren't using meta keyword tags yourself, you are doing the best thing for your site here, and now know where to look for a bit of competitive intelligence.
Christy
-
The meta keywords tag has no positive ranking value. Some folks believe they "do no harm" so fill them in just in case. I think if you read thru past Q&As on this topic, you'll find that a majority of the knowledgeable folks in this community believe it's not worth the effort of populating meta keyword tags unless you want to play games with the competition and distract them with meaningless or conflicting keywords.
If your website auto generates keyword tags, just leave them blank.
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
-
Header tags ratio matters?
Do we have anything like header tags ratio as of now in favour to search engines? Of course no multiple H1 tags. What if h2 or h3 tags are more than each others? We have top navigation links and one more navigation links which are h2 tags across all pages of website. Does this hurt?
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
301 redirect to URL plus anchor tag???
Hi - my company has just had a site redesign completed, and our "old" site we have landing pages for a full product line. The new design has taken the content from those landing pages and placed them into one long scrolling page. We currently rank well on the "old" landing pages but now all that content is contained in a single page with anchor tags throughout attached to the headings. Can you set up 301's to anchor tags? Example: old site www.mysite.com/products/automotive/auto-parts.html new site: www.mysite.com/products/automotive#auto-parts
Algorithm Updates | | Jenny10 -
Medical Marijuana Keywords
Has anyone seen any evidence of Google penalizing for Medical Marijuana related keywords in states where that is legal? Thanks in advance.
Algorithm Updates | | eocreative0 -
Low Domain Authority - Rank Well For Competitive Keywords
I have been following a competitor's link profile on OSE for over 8 months. Their linkbacks have remained the same (3 follow, 9 nofollow links), all from low-quality directory sites. However, my competitor continues to improve in rankings and is now #1 for competitive keyword searches. How is this possible? Is there a way to hide your link profile or links from OSE? Any tips are appreciated - Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | TheSEODR0 -
Keyword density and meta tags
Hi, I've just checked the number of keywords appearing on my website's pages. On some of them the keyword density was way too high (7-10%) if you included the meta tags, but all under 3.5% if I didn't include the keywords and description meta tags. So my question is - when looking at number of keywords used per page, do I have to worry about what's in those meta tags? Do the keywords in there count towards keyword density / number of keywords per page? Thanks, Luke
Algorithm Updates | | McTaggart0 -
To use the same content just changing the keywords could be seen as duplicate content?
I want to offer the same service or product in many different cities, so instead of creating a new content for each city what I want to do it to copy the content already created for the product and service of a city and then change the name of the city and create a new url inside my website for each city. for example let say I sell handmade rings in the USA, but I want o target each principal city in the USA, so I have want to have a unque url for ecxh city so for example for Miami I want to have www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-miami and for LA the url would be www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-la Can I have the same content talking about the handmade rings and just change the keywords and key phrases? or this will count as a duplicate content? content: TITLE: Miami Handmade Rings URL :www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-miami Shop Now handmade rings in Miami in our online store and get a special discount in Miami purchases over $50 and also get free shipping on Miami Local address... See what our Miami handmade rings clients say about our products.... TITLE: LA Handmade Rings URL: www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-la Shop Now handmade rings in LA in our online store and get a special discount in LA purchases over $50 and also get free shipping on LA Local address... See what our LA handmade rings clients say about our products.... There are more than 100 location in the country I want to do this, so that is why I want to copy paste and replace.. Thanks in advance, David Orion
Algorithm Updates | | sellonline1230 -
Is there a way to pull historical rankings for a keyword?
I have someone who's come to me and said that they have lost all of their organic keyword rankings. They did launch a site redesign a few months back so that could be a reason as to why. But after looking at the site, link profile, etc. It doesn't look like they could have been ranking for the terms they say they were. They have never implemented any SEO on their sites btw. I did not build this site and have not done any SEO, they are coming to me to solve the problem. I did notice in SEM rush that a couple months ago they were ranking organically for more terms (20 in July vs. 5 now), so they did lose some. Is there any way to see what terms they WERE ranking for?
Algorithm Updates | | MichaelWeisbaum0 -
Keyword Research for Real Estate Industry
I just finished reading the Beginners Guide to SEO at SEOMoz and joined as a Pro Member. I have created a campaign for my new SEO project and feel like I have a good understanding now of on-page optimization. I am going to start fixing title tags and on page content for our top 50 pages and start a new campaign to go after some keywords. Our website is 360dwellings. I am struggling to determine what the best keywords are for us to target. Right now our primary markets are Denver and San Diego, we also display listings for all of Colorado as well. We had originally gone after competitive keywords like "Denver Homes for Sale". What I am learning is that even ranking bottom of page one for that term doesn't bring a ton of traffic. Meanwhile, we rank well for a lot of niche content like "5280 best neighborhoods" "Denver Lofts for Sale" and "Denver Neighborhood Map". My questions is do we completely abandon going after big keywords like 'Denver CO Homes for Sale", and 'Denver Real Estate" and go as far as removing them from title tags? We have pages for every Denver neighborhood like Park Hill and the Highlands, but there is no search data for these searches in Google Keywords. My gut says that if each of those pages ranked for terms like "Denver Highlands Neighborhood Homes for Sale" that it would bring good targeted traffic. Does anyone know of search terms for Real Estate that are low competition but have some search volume? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | 360ryan0