Should I delete Meta Keywords from a website?
-
Hi Guys,
I've been reading various posts on the Q&A section here at Moz about Meta keywords.
I understand that meta keywords are not relevant with Google and that Bing signals this as spam.
I'm optimising existing websites which already have meta keywords in the html coding.
My question is:
If I delete ALL meta keyword coding will this have any negative impact whatsoever?
Thanks Mozers
Jason
-
They have no shame when it comes to link spam LOL. You should know this by now. This person seems no different then the people that email blast cialis discounts.
-
What about comment spam on seven-year-old posts? The links are all nofollow, FYI.
-
HI all,
I was about to embark on a meta keyword application exercise but now will refrain from it. All this was very informative, I was wondering whether to add them as not.
I agree it will always be content over keyword any day, hands down.
Regards,
Kamran
-
-
Thanks Dean,
I try to apply the same individual responses on Social Media. People take the time to respond individually and that warrants a personalised response.
All too often this is a failing of businesses on Social Media.
Jason
-
Congratulations on your new position Jason.
Also nice to see that you have responded to everyone who made a comment.
-
Hi Dean,
Think content rather than keywords - spot on!
As I've only been in my job for 6 weeks, my fear is if I delete them it may have a negative impact on our search engine results.
So far deleting them is more likely than not.
I'll keep you informed of any impact this may have.
Thanks
Jason
-
Hi David,
So far I'm in favour of deleting them, but with your response I'm in a bit of a dilemma.
I agree with your premise that you should optimise for people and not search engines, also the point about not knowing how people reach your site.
The meta keywords is the last of my tasks as meta tags, title tags and other on page text has been fully optimised. However I am finding a direct correlation between meta keywords and search engine rankings. Our sites feature in the top 5 searches on Google but 30-40 on Yahoo and Bing. So after optimising all other areas of the websites, meta keywords seem to be the cause of this. So the sink is leaking somewhere.
I really appreciate your detailed response and will take some time ponder over my options.
Thanks
Jason
-
Hi Chris,
Thanks for your reply. With your advice and the majority of responses to this post it seems like deleting them might be my best option.
If I delete them and it has a negative effect I'll keep you all informed!
Thanks
Jason
-
Thanks for clarifying this Kevin.
Our websites ranks high (top 5) on Google but ranks around 30-40 on Yahoo and Bing so there does seem to be a direct correlation.
I think the very nature of meta keywords is stuffing, so I'm swaying on the side of deleting them altogether.
Thanks for your response.
Jason
-
Thanks Evan
-
Hi Mark,
I too analyse competitors websites in the same way, it helps me with SEO and copywriting.
This is one of the main reasons I want to delete them from our sites.
Thanks for your feedback.
Jason
-
Thanks Benjamin,
There certainly seems to be harm in leaving them when considering Bing. I've noticed that our websites all ranks within the top 5 searches on Google but Bing and Yahoo we don't fair so well.
I am hesitant to delete them as you rightfully point out, they may be important in the future.
Cheers
Jason
-
Thanks for your response Ruben.
There's a few differing opinions on this thread so I'll take your advice and balance my options. Unfortunately the link you kindly provided cannot be found
Thanks
Jason
-
I agree with Mark on this one. As long as they are not stuffed, it may not be that big of a deal, but I don't include them.
-
I also would suggest that you delete them as no search engine use them and as already suggested it gives your competitors a list of keywords that you are trying to optimise for.
Think content rather than a list of keywords
-
I am in favor of keeping them. One rule we live for is "Not optimizing only for Google, yahoo or any one specific platform"
If the keywords are direct and well chosen, they will not hurt you. If not, its more than likely there are some other areas of your site that could use improvements as well. You never know how people will be getting to your site, or by what means they will get there. Removing something that is well structured, even if it's only used by a select few platforms is not a good idea IMHO.
If they are stuffed, then yes, it would be a good idea to revise them, but not completely remove them. Is the keywords tag the most important factor? No, not by any means. i would take a hard look at your description and page titles before I would suggest worrying about keywords.
A quote someone once told me about SEO "If my sink is leaking, I fix the leak. I don't throw away the whole sink, or go buy a new one, unless the old one cannot be repaired."
-
The short answer is no - it will have no negative impact.
-
No problem deleting them. Google and Yahoo does not use it as a ranking factor. Also, if stuffed could impact your rankings on Bing who uses as a spam signal.
-
When I'm doing keyword research, one of the first things I do is go on competitor websites and see if they have the meta keyword tag. If they do, then it instantly gives me access to all the keywords that they're targeting and allows me to work on beating them. Deleting your meta keyword tag prevents your competitors from doing this to you.
-
I would keep them, i even still use them with sites I'm building now because even though one search engine says they don't use them maybe another will and who knows if and when they will be important again. In my opinion no harm no foul. I leave mine.
-
Hi Jason,
This thread is from a couple of years ago, but it still holds true: http://moz.com/community/q/meta-keywords-should-we-use-them-or-nothttp://moz.com/community/q/meta-keywords-should-we-use-them-or-not
Before you do anything, wait for a second, third, and, maybe even, fourth opinion, but deleting all your meta keywords should not change your rankings in google at all...and it might even help your rankings in Bing...but it certainly won't hurt you.
- Ruben
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
-
What would be the best course of action to nullify negative effects of our website's content being duplicated (Negative SEO)
Hello, everyone About 3 months ago I joined a company that deals in manufacturing of transportation and packaging items. Once I started digging into the website, I noticed that a lot of their content was "plagiarized". I use quotes as it really was not, but they seemed to have been hit with a negative SEO campaign last year where their content was taken and being posted across at least 15 different websites. Literally every page on their website had the same problem - and some content was even company specific (going as far as using the company's very unique name). In all my years of working in SEO and marketing I have never seen something at the scale of this. Sure, there are always spammy links here and there, but this seems very deliberate. In fact, some of the duplicate content was posted on legitimate websites that may have been hacked/compromised (some examples include charity websites. I am wondering if there is anything that I can do besides contacting the webmasters of these websites and nicely asking for a removal of the content? Or does this duplicate content not hold as much weight anymore as it used to. Especially since our content was posted years before the duplicate content started popping up. Thanks,
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Hasanovic0 -
Hacked Websites (Doorways) Ranking First Page of Google
Hello Moz community! I could really use your help with some suggestions here with some recent changes I've noticed in the Google serps for terms I've been currently working on. Currently one of the projects I am working on is for an online pharmacy and noticed that the SERPs are being now taken up by hacked websites which look like doorways to 301 redirect to an online pharmacy the hacker wants the traffic to go to. Seems like they may be wordpress sites that are hacked and have unrelated content on their websites compared to online pharmacies. We've submitted these issues as spam to Google and within chrome as well but haven't heard back. When searching terms like "Canadian Pharmacy Viagra" and other similar terms we see this issue. Any other recommendations on how we can fix this issue? Thanks for your time and attached is a screenshot of the results we are seeing for one of our searches. 1Orus
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | monarkg0 -
Massive rank drop on one particular keyword
As all other marketeers do I follow closely my keywords, one particular keyword has ranked continually at #2 and has suddenly dropped to +#60, but all others remain the same. We are a fairly large site in terms of numbers 9m views annually, could it be possible that someone has black hatted that particular keyword, and if so how do I find out how and more importantly who?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | sususu0 -
Keyword Duplication in the title
Hello, I read on this great SEO Blueprint Article here that you don't want to duplicate any words in the title tag, even one duplicate. But what if your branding and keywords both have the same word in it. For example, making the title here like this: NLP Training and Certification Center | NLP and Coaching Institute which is 66 characters by the way. Your thoughts on the duplicate word "NLP"?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Keyword Specific Domain | Outranking trend
Hey everyone, i looked for a similar question but didnt found anything. Ive been having a lot trouble competing with other websites that use the "exact-keyword" domain (www.keyword.com), then they just stuff some mediocre content and rank 1-3 in Google SERP for that keyword I wasnt worried before because i thought they were going to be penalized or decreased in ranking. But they bought several keyword domains and outrank everyone in almost every word. Their conversion rate cant be that good because of the mediocre content, but still i dont like the fact that they rank better just because of the keyword. Any comment on this? , what would you do? Regards
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JesusD0 -
Am I Being Penalized For Having My Whole Site In A Subfolder Named With A Keyword?
I inherited a client. For some reason, their previous webmaster set up the site so everything is in a subfolder /law/. It's an attorney website. All the urls have the primary domain name /law/ and then assigned url. I can't image this is helping but could the site be penalized for this by Google or Bing? It's set up like this: www.attorneysite.com**/law/**therestoftheurl /law/ is included in EVERY PAGE... even the homepage.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | DeltonChilds0 -
Switching existing website to a Wordpress Site and afraid of losing top spot
I am going to be switching my current site from a standard html site to a wordpress site. I'm kind of paranoid of losing my top spot for the keyterms. If I keep the content the same, and keep the same amount of image alt tags, the same anchor text etc, nothing should change right? Grateful for any advice. Thanks Will
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | willie790 -
Why is the rankings for certain targeted keywords dropping sharply in the past few weeks?
Excuse me here I can't reveal the website url here due to the confidentiality. Background: This website has about 100+pages, and is a wordpress site. Out of 15 targeted keywords, there are few ranked first on Google.co.uk. others are ranked between 3rd and 50+. In the past couple of weeks, we have been submitting to various websites/directories. and 4 main keywords' rankings are improving steadily from 50+ to 20+. We don't buy links, or pay for link exhcanges. We only exchange links on rare occasions. Symptoms: 1. 2 out of 4 main keywords dropped its rankings from 20+ to 80+ 4 weeks ago over night. 2. We kept on acquiring links from directories and websites, and 2 weeks after the drop, the rankings of 2 affected keywords had gradually made its way back to 20-30. Just we thought the glitch was over, these 2 keywords has dropped rankings to 50+ once again. 3. The change of rankings looks too suspicious to us, so we went to use the Moz tool, and discovered the domain authority has also dropped 25% of its value in a month time. We never experienced such violent changes in terms of rankings in such a short period of time. My question is: what factors there are to have caused such violent shifts? Why the value of the domain authority is dropped by 25%-30%? What elements affect the domain authority the most?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | robotseo0