How important are meta keywords?
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Would you bother using meta keywords?
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I don't use meta keywords at all, everything seems fine. I don't want my competitors to see them too.
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Google doesn't use them and they are a great indicator to your competitors about exactly which keywords you believe are important to your business if they look at your source code.
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Some search engines actually use them to penalize words your targeting if they get the vaguest indication your involved in keyword stuffing/black hat. If your going whitehat I don't see any harm though.. Just take note if your doing anything a tad shady! Good luck.
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In terms of SEO, they carry little weight and in my experience they're not really worth the time you need to spend writing them.
However, if you're planning on submitting your site to any link directories, it is worth noting that meta keywords are sometimes used by the directories to help them organise and rank your site.
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To give you an idea, I did a test to see if Yahoo still uses them, and they do - however, Yahoo say they don't place much stock on them but they could be the difference between you getting above a competitor or not. However, Google and Bing don't use them at all.
Personally, I don't bother.
Regards,
Andy
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