Do you remember the time when Meta Keywords were the most important things to have on your website and blog? Having as many keywords as possible on the page and in the meta keywords tag was how SEO used to be. This has passed quite a long time ago… so, should you still use meta keywords?
Let’s ask Matt Cutts…
Meta Keywords not used by Google for ranking
Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking
We had an interesting question from someone who just asked me: “How much do you use the keyword or the keyword meta tag in your main search results?”
And the answer is, basically not at all!
So let’s talk about that in a little more details because sometime people file law suites: ALice has alice.com and Bob has bob.com and maybe Bob takes Alice’s name and put it in the keyword meta tag. And then, Alice sees that and she gets very angry. And she talks to Bob, and sues Bob, and all that sort of stuff.
How much should Alice be worried about Bob using this one term “Alice” in the Meta Keywords tag?
The answer is we don’t use the keyword meta tag in our search results. Other search engines might, but Google doesn’t.
Google Meta Keywords is a thing of the past.
What about Yahoo search?
In October 2009 Yahoo announced that they will not be using the meta keywords tag.
Yahoo Search No Longer Uses Meta Keywords Tag – And then there were none. Yahoo has long been the only major search engine that supported the meta keywords tag. However, the search engine revealed today that like the other majors, it no longer supports it.
Thereafter, it is found that they do use Meta tag for keywords.
Sorry, Yahoo, You DO Index The Meta Keywords Tag – Oh, that this weren’t true. Last week, Yahoo made news by disclosing that it had quietly dropped support for the meta keywords tag. As a long time hater of that tag and the insane questions it has produced, I was thrilled! But today, I see conclusively that Yahoo still supports the tag.
What about Bing search?
The Meta Keywords Tag Lives At Bing & Why Only Spammers Should Use It – I was happy. I was joyful. I thought the meta keywords tag had finally died last year. But Bing recently said that it does use it. After some back-and-forth, I can confirm further that it does, but as a signal for finding spammers, not for improving rank.
So, if none of the main 3 search engines do not use the Meta Keywords tag, which ones do?
Nobody really knows, but I think that there are still minor search engines and directories that use them for ranking or at least classify your site in categories.
Meta Keywords Best Practices for now on
Even if they are not used for ranking in search engines, I am still using them.
Meta Keywords Example
This is how the meta keywords tag looks like in the source of your page:
<meta name=”keywords” content=”WordPress ping list, WordPress Ping Plugin, Ping List 2014“/>
Taken from my last post!
Why am I still using Meta Keywords?
I am still using them because I think some other applications like a simple WordPress plugin may use them or will use them in the future. If it does no harm to have two or three keywords in the keywords tag, why not using them?
What about a search engines conspiracy? They are telling us they are not using the meta keywords tag to discourage keyword spammers, but they are still using it to some extend…
What about if they decide in the future to use the first keyword, or the 3 first keywords in the meta keywords tag? I really don’t see myself, going through a thousand page to add them…
What about you? What do you think?
Tell me in the comments bellow.
Michel Gerard
