The importance of meta keywords?
-
Hello,
Is adding meta keywords still worth doing nowadays? I have been reading and hearing some different opinions about it. For a ' beginner ' in this field it is hard to find a definite answer to this questions.. Thank you for reading(and answering) my question!
-
Meta keywords have never hurt any of our customer sites and can only help with other less known search engines. So I disagree with most here and say "keep them!"
-
Hi EPD,
I wanted to add one thing that hasn't been touched on. Meta keywords used to be extremely popular but people started abusing them - they would add dozens or even hundreds of meta keywords to low-quality landing pages to try and rank for various keywords. Google eventually caught on to this spammy tactic so that's why they are no longer a part of the algorithm.
There is one scenario in which meta keywords can be useful: internal site search. If you have an internal site search box on your site, you can add alternate product names or misspellings in the meta keyword field for popular products and it will help those products take users to the proper page and provide a good UX since most site search processors include meta keywords field when determining results. For example, If I sell gonorrhea testing and everyone misspells it, they may frequently get a no results page. Adding misspellings to meta keywords field helps more people find the product they are looking for.
I would try to limit this to about five meta keywords per product though so it doesn't look spammy.
Cheers!
-
I wrote an article on this exact topic awhile back. Bottom line, don't use the meta keywords tag. It's a waste of time for rankings and might be a good way for your competitors to know exactly what you're trying to rank for.
-
Hey there,
Thank you guys so much for the quick response! You've helped me loads!
-
Google officially announced in 2009 that meta keywords were not a factor. Including Meta keywords can be a negative instead of being a positive factor, as they are generally words which are inconsistent without meaning anything to a user or a search engine.
-
Hi there,
tldr; There is no importance.
I have 2 things to say:
- In 2009 there was a post and a video stating that Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking.
Post, Video - Personally, I believe that there's no reason to use them. There are a lot of "experts" that say you may not be 100% optimized using meta keywords. Other directly say that you will me penalized. As Google says it is not used, just dont use it.
Another idea is that this tag is public, so you may be saying publicly to your competitors what are your important keywords.
Best Luck.
GR. - In 2009 there was a post and a video stating that Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking.
-
Hi EPPD!
Google officially announced in 2009 that meta keywords was not a factor in ranking at all. I also believe that the description isn-t a ranking factor—the reason you need to focus on the description is to ensure that it has a strong hook that accurately reflects the content of the page to entice the searcher to click on the link.
-
Hi there
No, I would not add these. To Thomas' point, search engines don't bother with this as a ranking factor, and putting in meta keywords could also give your competition an idea of what keywords you are going after, essentially showing your cards in a poker game.
If you're looking for a great beginner resource, check out Moz's Beginner's Guide to SEO. It's loaded with tips and articles to help you get off to a great start and focus on items substantially more important than meta keywords! There are also other great guides and resources as well!
Hope this helps! Good luck to you!
P -
They used to be used quite heavily. Nowadays majority of the major search engines don't use them at all. The only one I believe still does is Yandex, of which it's a minor signal then.
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 optimisation: Google's eyes before users' eyes?
Hi all, So the default and ultimate suggestion about how to rank a page high is to get favoured by users, so by the Google. But if write content in favour of users, it may miss out the keywords or will not have much keyword density and variety of keywords to get in to Google's eyes. Then we may appear around 3rd page; then how do we get into top slots? I can see some top results without even a single mention of the keyword they are ranking for. How that would be possible? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Any important change in SERPs between Nov 17th and Nov 20th?
I've noticed important changes in visibility for some websites, between Nov 17th and Nov 20th. Also some of the webs that monitor SERPs have detected similar stuff (Including Mozcast). Do you know if an important change in SERPs took place during those days?
Algorithm Updates | | emerlo0 -
Keyword stuffing in
Having a discussion with my boss over whether the following page is over-saturated (stuffed) with keywords in the element: http://www.godreamvacations.com/BarceloHotels -- We implemented the description and keyword tag text back in 2010 when the boss gave me the text. Anyone have any good responses to the bosses' response (below)? "These are the ones (pages) that are actually working wonderfully well on Bing. At the time, I researched the optimal number of characters and tried to really follow all that was suggested by SEO experts. As far as the keywords, I would say you could remove the ones without the “s”, for example, take out “Barcelo Hotel” and leave “Barcelo Hotels” I think this is all relevant to what is found on the page. I don’t know what they would expect us to do differently than this. Do you? What is your MOZ currently saying is the optimal number of characters for a Title?" Any responses would be appreciated. Am I wrong in saying it's "stuffed" and looks spammy? What would you tell your boss?
Algorithm Updates | | godreamvacations0 -
Ecommerce or E-commerce as a Keyword?
I have done a good bit of research but am not sure which word to focus on. I feel that the trend is moving towards no hyphen but I do not have any data to justify that other than google trends. Here is the research I found: Google Trends says ecommerce is more popular
Algorithm Updates | | Manseo
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=e-commerce%2C%20ecommerce&cmpt=q Ngram says e-commerce
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=ecommerce%2Ce-commerce&year_start=1990&year_end=2013&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cecommerce%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ce%20-%20commerce%3B%2Cc0 Google Adwords Keyword tool says e-commerce:
e-commerce has 33,100 monthly search volume
ecommerce has 14,800 monthly search volume What do you think, will ecommerce overtake e-commerce in the future monthly search volumes? Ecommerce or E-commerce?0 -
Google decreased use of Meta Descripiton Tag
Over the past month or so I have noticed that Google is not using the meta description for my pages but is instead pulling text from the actual page to show on the SERP. Is Google placing less emphasis on meta descriptions?
Algorithm Updates | | PerriCline0 -
Is there a utility that can tell me what keywords my site already ranks high for?
Ok... so I'm looking for a way to understand what my site already ranks high for.. I don't necessarily want to have to manually type in keywords. The purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate to a client what keywords they're already ranking high for. Is there an easy way / tool to go about doing this? Thanks in advance, Gene
Algorithm Updates | | BGroup0 -
Can I check the rank of a keyword over time ?
Is there any tools available that allows users to track ranking of a keyword in SERP over time ? I know the question can be a bit confusing so here is an example that I hope makes it a bit easier to understand EXAMPLE : I am doing keyword research for say "iphones games" and I find out the current sites that rank for the term but If I want to see who ranked for the term 6 months ago or 1 year ago, is it possible ? Also can I get data of the SERP ranking history for "example.com" for the term "iphones games" ? eg : in jan 2011 rank 10 feb 2011 rank 7 ... sep 2011 rank 5
Algorithm Updates | | avant_seomoz0 -
Are we penalized if our meta description is longer than 150-160 characters?
I've read on other SEO sites that description can be 350 characters or 60 words long. Some of my descriptions are a little bit over those numbers. Will Search Engines stop crawling through the description at after a certain amount of characters, or will it completely ignore it if it's too long, hence hurting my site's SEO performance?
Algorithm Updates | | jmbuytaert0