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 Keywords Good or Bad
-
Hi All,
I've been reading more about the meta keyword tag and why it may not be a good idea to include them on pages and am looking for thoughts/feedback on this idea. If you have employed this tactic, can you give me some insight into any results you saw. If you decided to not employ this tactic, why did you choose not to? I wan to understand all sides of this before employing any changes to my company's websites.
Thank you for your help!
-
What about using it just a a simple place to keep your targeted keyword for a given page while you are working? So if you have a number of hand coded page and want to quickly go through and put in what you are going for there before you start changing the page to suit. I'm not sure why you would care if competitors knew? If your page is optimized your keyword phrase for that page is in the title and the h1 so they can crawl your site if they want and get all of them anyway.
-
We havent used Meta keywords for a couple of years but I read an interesting article yesterday that suggested using this field to list semantic keywords and synonyms that you couldnt fit naturally into the body content. Havent tried it yet, just thought it was an interesting concept.
-
The only time I've ever used keywords recently was when a competitor kindly laid out all of the keywords they're targeting in their meta keywords tag!

As the others have said, meta keywords just isn't worth the worry, it's not going to affect how search engines interpret your page* and you're better off spending the time on setting up authorship, open-graph etc.
(*Bing have even said that in some cases they may use the keywords meta tag as an indicator of a spammy site.)
-
There are 100s of areas that search engines look in to before ranking any website against any key phrase. Meta keyword tag is one of the areas which are considered as less important.
Google have clearly recommended not to use it and they do not use this as a ranking factor but as far as the Bing is concern they do use it as a ranking signal but still this does not land in important ranking factors.
There are no significant reasons why I do not use it because there are tools which can indicate competitors that what keywords i am focusing, so saying that I am not using so that my competitors didn’t get to know what I am up to is silly!
I think Meta keyword tag is like good for nothing... Use it or don’t use it... it does not matter much i think you should invest your time looking in to other important areas and i believe that will be the better use of the time!
-
I wouldn't spend my time deleting them as its a waste of time since Google ignores them.
If I'm working on SEO or other page elements and want to do some housecleaning I get rid of them.
On all current SEO practices, meta keywords are completely off the to-do list.
-
Well, I've removed the keyword tag from all my Websites about 2 years ago. Mainly because Google said they don't use it anymore. However, Bing said that they could still use the meta to figure out what is the page about. Still we haven't see change in terms of rankings.
I personally won't use that meta again, just to remove some clutter from the page. With all today's metas (authorship, OGs, twitter cards, etc.) you are just adding more "garbage" that actually doesn't do anything.
-
They are not used by search engines anymore and is really just a good way for your competitors to see what keywords you might be targeting. I would not use them.
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
-
Difference LSI and and secondary related keywords
Hi, It is confusing to me. So far what I understand is the following: LSI are synonyms of the keyword your target (the one in the H1 and title tag). For example my keyword would be "Tuscany bike tour" and my LSI would be "Tuscany cycling vacation", "bicycle tour in Tuscany" etc... Then secondary related keyword are for me the other topics I need to cover in my content. In this case for example it would be "Florence", "Siena". But from what I understand a good writer wouldn't use "Siena" or "Florence" multiple times in it's content it would replace it by keywords that support them such as "the town of Florence", "the city of Siena"," the Palio of Siena" etc...Is my understanding correct ? If so what is the use of using those secondary related keyword, is it to rank on other keywords such as Palio of siena tuscany bike tour ? or just not to repeat a secondary keyword too many times. If i write the Palio of Siena isn't it considered as another topic that the topic siena ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Importing Keyword Planner Data into Excel?
What is the most efficient way to import search volume information into excel? We have 130K keywords that we need search volume information for.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Focusing on Multiple Niches for one site: good or bad?
Is it wise to focus on multiple niches for one site, rather than zoning in one or two different niches? On one hand, you can target many more topics and go after tons of keywords, but on the other hand doesn't google get confused of what your site is really about? Won't google just focus on one of the niches that you provide more than all others? Any input would be great!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
Meta Tag Force Page Refresh - Good or Bad?
I had recently come across a meta tag that could cause a auto refresh on a users browser when implemented. I have been using it for a redesign and was curious if there could be any negative effects for using it, here is the code: All input is appreciated. Ciao, Todd Richard
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RichFinnSEO0 -
Are dropdown menus bad for SEO
I have an ecommerce shop here: http://m00.biz/UHuGGC I've added a submenu for each major category and subcategory of items for sale. There are over 60 categories on that submenu. I've heard that loading this (and the number of links) before the content is very bad for SEO. Some will place the menu below the content and use absolute positioning to put the menu where it currently is now. It's a bit ridiculous in doing things backwards and wondering if search engines really don't understand. So the question is twofold: (1) Are the links better in a bottom loading sidemenu where they are now? (2) Given the number of links (about 80 in total with all categories and subcategories), is it bad to have the sidemenu show the subcategories which, in this instance, are somewhat important? Should I just go for the drilldown, e.g. show only categories and then show subcategories after? Truth is that users probably would prefer the dropdown with all the categories and second level subcategories, despite the link number and placement.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | attorney1 -
How to auto generate a unique meta description?
The site I am working on is a code nightmare for starters. I'm editing a file called layout that controls the section of each page. The programmer from a while back got unique titles by putting this piece of code in: <title><?= $this->metaTag ?></title> In all the different controllers and stuff I can see where the title is the name of the product plus review or something to that effect. How do I do this for the meta description? Right now the meta description is static in the layout file, and so every page has an identical one. I was hoping there was a way to make the meta description automatically use the first 140 characters on the page or something. Something like this:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DanDeceuster0 -
Wordtracker vs Google Keyword Tool
When I find keyword opportunities in Wordtracker, I'll sometimes run them through Adwords Keyword tool only to find that Google says these keywords have 0 search volume. Would you use these keywords even though Google says users aren't searching for them?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Keyword-Rich Domains - Redirect?
Hi, Mozzers- I have a client that has a bunch of pretty nice keyword-rich domain names. Their traffic and rankings are good. They provide legal services in the Chicago area. I have lots of good content that I could use to start a blog using a domain like keyword,keyword-blog.com. Good idea? Currently I have a resources area on their website but feel like this area could be getting a little bloated and some news-related stuff isn't really appropriate. 2 Questions: Should I use one of the decent domains for a blog and build up the rankings, traffic, and link to the main site? Or is this lots of work for little payout? Both sites would be hosted in the cloud. Some of the domain names are related to their name, others are keyword or geo-targeted. Would it be wise to setup 301 redirects going to their website? Pros/cons? If you need additional info, please PM me for details. Thank you, friends! LHC
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lhc670