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
-
Am I accidentally Keyword Stuffing?
Hey Guys, So I updated some copy on my site recently and noticed that whatever slender rankings I had (often on page 😎 have completely disappeared. The copy was the only change I have made. Now I haven't intentionally keyword stuffed however I have noticed that there happens to be a lot keywords in there. For example on my PPC page I use the phrase PPC 16 times however it has just naturally fallen into the content as that is what I'm writing about. I'm wondering if there are maybe too many mentions here? 16 repeats of the word PPC and on the page there are 490 words. Does that feel like too much repetition or am I barking up the wrong tree? Thanks, Matt
On-Page Optimization | | MattStott40 -
Does the position of your main keyword phrase matter within the page?
The addition of a new grid type navigation within the body of our page could mean that the keyword phrase the page is optimized for could be pushed below the fold. Is this a bad thing?
On-Page Optimization | | Catherine_Selectaglaze1 -
Multiple and tags
It has recently come to our attention that some of the pages on our site have multiple and tags. I understand that this goes against best practices-- but I was wondering if anyone could tell me specifically how this could be impacting our site's performance and search rankings.
On-Page Optimization | | ZoomInformation0 -
Category page canonical tag
I know this question has been asked a few times on here but I'm looking for very specific advice. Currently when you go to a category, say http://www.bronterose.co.uk/range.html, a canonical tag is added to the head of the page. There are plenty of "variant" pages which carry the same tag, for example: /range.html?p=2
On-Page Optimization | | crichardson9
/range.html?p=3
/range.html?dir=asc&order=price
/range.html?dir=asc&limit=all&order=price Is it wise to push the "link juice" for each of these variant pages to the top level page? Or should each variant page have its own unique canonical tag? After reading many blog posts, guides and papers I'm truly confused! Any general guidance or recommendations would be much appreciated. Chris.1 -
Hey guys! I was looking at adding the H1 tag lower on the page than the H2 tag because I want the top bit to be a call to action. Is this proper practice?
Hey guys! I was looking at adding the H1 tag lower on the page than the H2 tag because I want the top bit to be a call to action. Is this proper practice?
On-Page Optimization | | Web3Marketing870 -
Keyword in url, which way better?
Hello, is there a difference between urls for targeting keyword "brazil tourist visa" fastbrazilvisas.com/tourist or fastbrazilvisas.com/brazil-tourist-visa ? ran the report In-Page Optimization it tells "no keyword usage in url". is there an idea behind that? thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Kotkov0 -
Alt tagging photos.
Here is the background. My wife has a website selling childrens clothing. All the basics of this webshop is through a company that have some 300 other sites. 2-4 times a year arond 100 products have to be added to the shop. Pictures are of course highly important. Some pictures are supplied by producer of clothes some we have to take ourself. Pictures supplied by producer is not tagged. When we are adding a product; avail sizes,prices, product description, which folder it is to be shown in etc is added. Pictures are added but there is no functionality for adding alt tag to the pictures. Is there any way i can incorporate the tag into the picture file eg .jpg before its added here or is it impossible is this impossible ? Thanks for all help. Dan
On-Page Optimization | | danlae0 -
When the keyword rankings trend south…?
So for the past 3 or 4 weeks or so I’ve been making some on page tweaks for keywords that we should rank for, implementing all the keyword recommendations, and getting “A’s” in the report card for page optimization in the Pro tool, and also doing things like fixing a bunch of 404’s that I found ….so I thought I was doing a bang up job… My rankings for some keywords were generally trending (slowly) in the right direction, but this morning I see that 2 important keywords that I had been working hard on, and which had trended from around 40 to in the high 20’s in rankings, has now dropped out of top 50 altogether…. I’m a little dispirited, and now wondering if I did something wrong? Any thoughts or recommendations? Is it normal just to drop out of top 50 when you were in the 20's or 30's? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | inhouseninja0