Does the keyword meta tag not matter anymore?
-
In the SeoMoz report generated, it recommended removing the meta keywords tag as it was no long relevant?
why is google no longer considering this?
-
I agree with your point; however, scanning a competitors keywords tag is, as you said, just a starting point (assuming they didn't dump their entire link building campaign worth of keywords/phrases into the tag).
For example, a keywords tag for a real estate site homepage might be: content="real estate, homes for sale, houses for sale", or something along those lines. Now, those keywords might be useful for the search engines that still respect the keywords tag, but they're not any help to competition as you probably could have guess, just by looking at the site, that those were keywords they are probably trying to optimize for, anyways.
Just remember, Google's not the only search engine out there.
It'd be foolish to give away any trade secrets within those tags, anyways, so there's not much to worry about in my opinion.
-
At the start of an SEO campaign for my smaller client I use their competitors site keyword metat tag as a starting point for keyword research.
I also recommend that we remove the keyword meta from my clients sites so other SEOs don't use the information to their own benefit.
It's an approach that seems to work for me.
-
However, it's believed that there are still smaller search engines out there that do. It doesn't hurt IMO, so why not include it?
Just don't bloat it with a million keywords. Keep it short and sweet to what the page content is about; just like adding tags in Wordpress.
-
Google have not used they keyword meta tag since about 2009 IIRC
See here for more details: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html
How that helps,
K
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
-
Where does Google get its meta descriptions from?
We have a new client and they don't have meta descriptions yet. However, Google has assigned descriptions for them now appearing on the SERPs. The problem is that Google added a phone number that's totally not the client's and goes to a different unrelated business. Our plan is to update the meta to reflect the correct information, however, we're just perplexed as to how Google came up with the incorrect phone number. Where does it get its information from? The page currently has all the correct phone number, hours, and content. I've read that Google sometimes also doesn't recognise our meta descriptions if it thinks they could serve up a better one. My next question is, what if Google insists on showing the incorrect phone number. Is there a way we can fix this? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | nhhernandez2 -
How unique should a meta description be?
I'm working on a large website (circa 25k pages) that presently just replicates each page title as a meta description. I'm thinking of doing a 'find and replace' in the database so I change: to where the preceeding and following text would be the same in each case eg Is this unique enough? Obviously the individual keyword would make it technically unique each time....and manually changing them would take the rest of my life 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | abisti21 -
2 sets of meta tags in html
I use Wordpress for my business website...when I was looking at my html using "source" on Google, I noticed it looks like my site html has 2 sets of meta tags? www.seadwellers.com is my site
On-Page Optimization | | sdwellers
I do not know why, and I am not sure how to get into my html using Wordpress to delete one set?1 -
Should i make all of my pages with canonical tag
Hi, Im using thesis Wordpress theme, and their default option is "Add canonical <acronym title="Uniform Resource Locator">URL</acronym>s to your site" im just wandering if i should keep that box checked and apply canonical <acronym title="Uniform Resource Locator">URL</acronym>s to all of my pages? Thank You
On-Page Optimization | | Vmezoz0 -
H1 tag mandatory?
Hi there! Is a mandatory to fullfill the H1 tag in order to improve SEO? I mean I'm in the case where the keyword selected is appropiate to optimize the page but not appropiate to be in H1 tag 'cause it probably "doesn't sound good" to the user. Is it enought to be present in the url, title and description?Any suggestion? Thanks in advanced.
On-Page Optimization | | juanmiguelcr0 -
Keyword canibalization
Hi all, as part of the optimization process i've used the same keyword in two different pages of my site (the "home" page and another page") 'cause I had only four criteria (keywords) selected for my business model and six pages so I had to redistributed it in diferent pages. This keyowrd especifically is suited for two pages of the website. The thing is that it could result in keyword canibalization as two pages are competing for the same keyword and may Google penalize the site. ¿How could I solve the problem? I can use only these four criteria according the the business model of the company. In case the pages are indexed and something has been changed how must i proceed? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | juanmiguelcr0 -
Meta Keywords
Hello! Just wondering what opinions others have on Meta Keywords? Ive read in the past here on Seomoz that they are irrelevant now to search engines. I do see some of our Large competitors still using them. When I use the SEO page tool to check out pages for optimization it recommends that we remove them? This is something that I have been doing for a few months now but am second guessing myself now. Should I continue to leave them out of current page structure? Thank You!!!!
On-Page Optimization | | TP_Marketing0 -
Information being added before meta description
On the search engine results page I am finding that information has been added before my meta description - this is only a recent flaw and I've no idea how it can be caused. It is happening in the same format as you see dates sometimes before meta descriptions. This is what is actually being shown on the search engine results page. I am getting this text - Product 1 - 15 of 18 – then my meta description after that. The words 'Product 1 - 15 of 18' is in the heading at the top of the page but it is in no way interacting with the meta description. It looks like Google is confusing the words 'Product 1 - 15 of 18' with a date possibly. Any suggestions.
On-Page Optimization | | serp3600