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
-
Huge difference between GSC ranking and browser ranking for certain keywords: How to proceed?
Hi, There is a huge ranking difference between the GSC and browser for our primary keyword. As per GSC, our ranking is around 15 and when checking on the multiple different incognito browsers it's around 50. How to handle this? Which is the accurate one? Product expert from Google forums claim that what I see on browsers are the personalized results; but I tried on different browsers with different connections. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Different versions of keywords. Which one to optimize?
For some keywords, we have slightly different versions available. For example: people search for 'webhosting', but also for 'web hosting'. Same for 'cloudserver' and 'cloud server'. I used google trends to compare the keywords and find the more popular one. But in different countries, different keywords are searched more often. So we can't really optimize for the BEST version of the keyword, since there is no real BEST version. What would you suggest to do? We could also just develop pages for both keywords, but that could end in duplicated content. Would be an option to use canonicalization then, but this would not really improve ranking for one of the versions. I'm very confused. If anyone has a good idea on how to optimize here, please let me know. Thank you in advance! Best regards
Algorithm Updates | | hosttech_ch
Klemens1 -
Google is simplifying my meta titles. What does it mean?
Hi Guys. I've noticed that google seems to be simplifying my meta titles in their SERP for some keyword searchs. Should I be worried about this? Perhaps a sign of being a little 'spammy' in my meta titles? Or is Google just aiming to bring up the most relevant looking result? Based on that specific search? Isaac.
Algorithm Updates | | isaac6630 -
Does Google ACTUALLY ding you for having long Meta Titles? Or do studies just suggest a lower CTR?
I do SEO in an agency and have many clients. I always get the question, "Will that hurt my SEO?". When it comes to Meta Title and even Meta Description Length, I understand Google will truncate it which may result in a lower CTR, but does it actually hurt your ranking? I see in many cases Google will find keywords within a long meta description and display those and then in other cases it will simply truncate it. Is Google doing whatever they want willy-nilly or is there data behind this? Thank you!
Algorithm Updates | | Bevelwise0 -
Keywords and meta tag discription
My meta tag description is the same on a lot of my pages www.okanaganbc.com It was done by the original designer. Should all of the meta descriptions and keywords be unique for each page?
Algorithm Updates | | Realtor1010 -
Sharp Drop in SERP Ranking for Specific Keyword
I'm sure this happens to a lot of people for a lot of different reasons. My pages http://www.cleanedison.com/leed and http://www.cleanedison.com/courses/leed-green-associate suddenly dropped off the map over the past 2 weeks for the keyword "LEED Certification" I tried to limit the number of times "LEED" was mentioned on the first URL (/leed) to try to combat an over-optimization penalty but I did not for the second (/leed-green-associate). Both of them have fallen precipitously and are no where to be found on Google. What can I do to troubleshoot this? Is there anyway to guard against this in the future?
Algorithm Updates | | CleanEdisonInc0 -
Are the tags from schema.org beneficial for SEO?
I just came across schema.org, which has a massive list of attribute tags that can be added to HTML code, presumable with the benefit of giving search engines clear signals about your content -- and by extension, presumably boosting the ranking of good-quality content sites. Many of the tags point back to schema.org for definitions of content types. Since it's the first time I've seen this, I thought I'd ask the question: Do the tags listed at schema.org carry any weight with Google, or is this a self-promotional effort by schema.org to become an arbiter of SEO and content encoding? Thanks folks.
Algorithm Updates | | RobM4160 -
Issue: Having to Fight Product Marketing to Use Keywords
This is sort of a "DUH!" moment to me. I know everyone has come across this at some point in time and am interested in hearing how others deal with this. A little background: I was researching keywords for new menus and pages. Sometimes, people (product marketing in my case) do not give me a heads up on changes they want to make to pages and it is always a fight with them to change it. This is pretty normal for me and I am use to it. It is one of those things that they don't want to discuss it with you because they know you are going to critique their work. and, yes, change it for the good of the company. I had a co-worker say to me:
Algorithm Updates | | SmartBear
"We may have to start making [pages] meaningful to the human visitor than satify the bot army". My response was:
"What better way to make it [web page] meaningful to users by knowing which terms they search on the most in our industry? Keyword research is not just for Search Engines, it is actual live data as to what most people are searching. That is why I put such a high precedence on it and report on trends. You can bet that if 100,000 people are searching for [keyword], that is what they want to see when they search for it." Anyways, that is how I handled this particular event. I have several responses when these comments pop up from time to time. Usually it is something to the fact that they are not the ones who will get fired if leads drop via organic search, so we better try this. But today, I was feeling kind of spunky and decided to take another route. What are some of your responses to these types of remarks? Hopefully this will make for a good discussion.0