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
-
Can 'Jump link'/'Anchor tag' urls rank in Google for keywords?
E.g. www.website.com/page/#keyword-anchor-text Where the part after the # is a section of the page you can jump to, and the title of that section is a secondary keyword you want the page to rank for?
Algorithm Updates | | rwat0 -
Footer menu links: Header tags or list items?
Hi, I would like to know header tags (h5 or h6) or list items ( ) works better for footer menu links for the best linking structure. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz1 -
Can hreflang tags still work when the Alternate URL is 301 redirecting to a translated URL in Japanese Characters?
My organization has several international sites 4 of them of which have translated URLs in either Japanese, Traditional Chinese, German & Canadian French. The hreflang tags we have set up on our United States look something like this: But when you actually go to http://www.domain.co.jp/it-security/ you are 301 redirected to the translated URL version: www.domain.co.jp/it-セキュリティ/
Algorithm Updates | | brantmk
My question is, will Google still understand that the translated URL is the Alternate URL, or will this present errors? The hreflang tags are automated for each of our pages and would technically be hard to populate the hreflang with the translated URL version. However we could potentially make the hreflang something customized on a page level basis.0 -
Exact Keywords Domain name
Hello everyone!, I would love to have your opinion on this matter. I am working on a company e-commerce site; these guys would like to change their domain name AND their company name, so the most logical thing that came to mind was to name the domain after the company name. However, they also bought in the past a domain that have the exact keyword they would like to rank for. I know that keywords in the URL are not as important as they used to be in the past, but nonetheless when I do a Google search for those keywords, 3 domains out of 10 on the first page are slight variations of those same keywords, meaning that they might have a really good domain name (also the other result are government, medical stuff and so on). And, no matter how many times I have read that keywords in the URL are not so important anymore, I still see a lot of sites ranking also because of their domain name (well at least outside the US) So, my question here is: would it be better for them to use the exact match keyword-domain name or should they use their company name for their new site? Or some sort combination of the two? (the keyword-domain that in some way points also to the brand domain). Thanks for your opinions on this; really appreciate it! Cheers
Algorithm Updates | | Eyah0 -
Does Word Order Matter in Local Keywords?
We do a lot of local SEO, and we're wondering if it's better to target "keyword location" or "location keyword"? Does it affect ranking and keyword difficulty if we're trying to rank for "plumbing appleton" or "appleton plumbing"? Any insight would be great.
Algorithm Updates | | optimalwebinc0 -
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 -
Title tag consistency. Is it worth it?
I operate a stain removal website and was wondering how consistent it was worth being from title tag to title tag. To give you an example, here is a group of keyword phrases that I might wish to target: "getting out pet stains with vinegar" "how do I remove water stains from wood" "removing chocolate stains" Does the benefit to be gained (whatever that might be) from making these consistently of the form "how to remove X from Y, " or "how to remove X" outweigh simply giving articles titles based on the exact phrases above? I heard from someone that Google is getting more proficient at spotting "clumsy" title tags, although I'm not sure if any of the above examples would fall into that category, and was thinking that I should then probably proceed on the basis of directly titling articles based on the exact keywords I am uncovering... Any advice much appreciated.
Algorithm Updates | | ZakGottlieb710 -
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