Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • Case Studies
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • SEO Q&A

        Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • Case Studies

        Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. Research & Trends
    3. Algorithm Updates
    4. The importance of meta keywords?

    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.

    The importance of meta keywords?

    Algorithm Updates
    9
    10
    11881
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • EPPD
      EPPD last edited by

      Hello,

      Is adding meta keywords still worth doing nowadays? I have been reading and hearing some different opinions about it.  For a ' beginner ' in this field it is hard to find a definite answer to this questions.. Thank you for reading(and answering) my question!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • roundbrix
        roundbrix last edited by

        Meta keywords have never hurt any of our customer sites and can only help with other less known search engines. So I disagree with most here and say "keep them!"

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote -1
        • Fiyyazp
          Fiyyazp Subscriber last edited by

          Hi EPD,

          I wanted to add one thing that hasn't been touched on. Meta keywords used to be extremely popular but people started abusing them - they would add dozens or even hundreds of meta keywords to low-quality landing pages to try and rank for various keywords. Google eventually caught on to this spammy tactic so that's why they are no longer a part of the algorithm.

          There is one scenario in which meta keywords can be useful: internal site search. If you have an internal site search box on your site, you can add alternate product names or misspellings in the meta keyword field for popular products and it will help those products take users to the proper page and provide a good UX since most site search processors include meta keywords field when determining results. For example, If I sell gonorrhea testing and everyone misspells it, they may frequently get a no results page. Adding misspellings to meta keywords field helps more people find the product they are looking for.

          I would try to limit this to about five meta keywords per product though so it doesn't look spammy.

          Cheers!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • SEMbyotic
            SEMbyotic last edited by

            I wrote an article on this exact topic awhile back. Bottom line, don't use the meta keywords tag. It's a waste of time for rankings and might be a good way for your competitors to know exactly what you're trying to rank for.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • EPPD
              EPPD last edited by

              Hey there,

              Thank you guys so much for the quick response! You've helped me loads!

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Vijay-Gaur
                Vijay-Gaur last edited by

                Google officially announced in 2009 that meta keywords were not a factor. Including Meta keywords can be a negative instead of being a positive factor, as they are generally words which are inconsistent without meaning anything to a user or a search engine.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                • GastonRiera
                  Gaston Riera last edited by

                  Hi there,

                  tldr; There is no importance.

                  I have 2 things to say:

                  1. In 2009 there was a post and a video stating that Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking.
                    Post, Video
                  2. Personally, I believe that there's no reason to use them. There are a lot of "experts" that say you may not be 100% optimized using meta keywords. Other directly say that you will me penalized. As Google says it is not used, just dont use it.

                  Another idea is that this tag is public, so you may be saying publicly to your competitors what are your important keywords.

                  Best Luck.
                  GR.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                  • BlueCorona
                    BlueCorona last edited by

                    Hi EPPD!

                    Google officially announced in 2009 that meta keywords was not a factor in ranking at all. I also believe that the description isn-t a ranking factor—the reason you need to focus on the description is to ensure that it has a strong hook that accurately reflects the content of the page to entice the searcher to click on the link.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                    • PatrickDelehanty
                      PatrickDelehanty last edited by

                      Hi there

                      No, I would not add these. To Thomas' point, search engines don't bother with this as a ranking factor, and putting in meta keywords could also give your competition an idea of what keywords you are going after, essentially showing your cards in a poker game.

                      If you're looking for a great beginner resource, check out Moz's Beginner's Guide to SEO. It's loaded with tips and articles to help you get off to a great start and focus on items substantially more important than meta keywords! There are also other great guides and resources as well!

                      Hope this helps! Good luck to you!
                      P

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 4
                      • ThomasHarvey
                        ThomasHarvey last edited by

                        They used to be used quite heavily. Nowadays majority of the major search engines don't use them at all. The only one I believe still does is Yandex, of which it's a minor signal then.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 4
                        • 1 / 1
                        • First post
                          Last post

                        Got a burning SEO question?

                        Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                        Start my free trial


                        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.

                        • See all categories

                        Related Questions

                        • vtmoz

                          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 | | vtmoz
                          0
                        • SallieJ

                          How important are author bios to SEO?

                          I'm trying to understand the importance of author bios to Google and its latest algorithms. Some say author bios affect rankings, but others say that has not been specifically stated by Google — but it does affect the user experience. Anyone have input on this? Thanks!

                          Algorithm Updates | | SallieJ
                          0
                        • markjoyce

                          Product pages - should the meta description match our product description?

                          Hi, I am currently adding new products to my website and was wondering, should I use our product description (which is keyword optimised) in the meta description for SEO purposes? Or would this be picked up by Google as duplicate content? Thanks in advance.

                          Algorithm Updates | | markjoyce
                          1
                        • Manseo

                          Ecommerce or E-commerce as a Keyword?

                          I have done a good bit of research but am not sure which word to focus on.  I feel that the trend is moving towards no hyphen but I do not have any data to justify that other than google trends.  Here is the research I found: Google Trends says ecommerce is more popular
                          http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=e-commerce%2C%20ecommerce&cmpt=q Ngram says e-commerce
                          https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=ecommerce%2Ce-commerce&year_start=1990&year_end=2013&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cecommerce%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ce%20-%20commerce%3B%2Cc0 Google Adwords Keyword tool says e-commerce:
                          e-commerce has 33,100 monthly search volume
                          ecommerce has 14,800 monthly search volume What do you think,  will ecommerce overtake e-commerce in the future monthly search volumes? Ecommerce or E-commerce?

                          Algorithm Updates | | Manseo
                          0
                        • netdiva_amy

                          Troubleshooting Decline of Branded Keyword Searches

                          Hi, Over the past year, I have seen a huge change in the distribution of our organic keyword traffic. I'm trying to research why our branded keywords have gone down.  Google analytics only shows me impressions for the past three months. Does anyone have ideas on how to explain this change in traffic? Please see the attached chart. Thanks! branded-v-nonbranded-organic-search.jpg

                          Algorithm Updates | | netdiva_amy
                          0
                        • McTaggart

                          Keyword density and meta tags

                          Hi, I've just checked the number of keywords appearing on my website's pages. On some of them the keyword density was way too high (7-10%) if you included the meta tags, but all under 3.5% if I didn't include the keywords and description meta tags. So my question is - when looking at number of keywords used per page, do I have to worry about what's in those meta tags? Do the keywords in there count towards keyword density / number of keywords per page? Thanks, Luke

                          Algorithm Updates | | McTaggart
                          0
                        • sellonline123

                          To use the same content just changing the keywords could be seen as duplicate content?

                          I want to offer the same service or product in many different cities, so instead of creating a new content for each city what I want to do it to copy the content already created for the product and service of a city  and then change the name of the city and create a new url inside my website for each city. for example let say I sell handmade rings in the USA, but I want o target each principal city in the USA, so I have want to have a unque url for ecxh city so for example for Miami I want to have www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-miami and for LA the url would be www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-la Can I have the same content talking about the handmade rings and just change the keywords and key phrases? or this will count as a duplicate content? content: TITLE: Miami Handmade Rings URL :www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-miami Shop Now handmade rings in Miami  in our online store and get a special discount in Miami purchases over $50 and also get free shipping on Miami Local address... See what our Miami handmade rings clients say about our products.... TITLE: LA Handmade Rings URL: www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-la Shop Now handmade rings in LA  in our online store and get a special discount in LA purchases over $50 and also get free shipping on LA Local address... See what our LA handmade rings clients say about our products.... There are more than 100 location in the country I want to do this, so that is why I want to copy paste and replace.. Thanks in advance, David Orion

                          Algorithm Updates | | sellonline123
                          0
                        • MichaelWeisbaum

                          Is there a way to pull historical rankings for a keyword?

                          I have someone who's come to me and said that they have lost all of their organic keyword rankings.  They did launch a site redesign a few months back so that could be a reason as to why.  But after looking at the site, link profile, etc.  It doesn't look like they could have been ranking for the terms they say they were.  They have never implemented any SEO on their sites btw.  I did not build this site and have not done any SEO, they are coming to me to solve the problem.  I did notice in SEM rush that a couple months ago they were ranking organically for more terms (20 in July vs. 5 now), so they did lose some.  Is there any way to see what terms they WERE ranking for?

                          Algorithm Updates | | MichaelWeisbaum
                          0

                        Get started with Moz Pro!

                        Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                        Start my free trial
                        Products
                        • Moz Pro
                        • Moz Local
                        • Moz API
                        • Moz Data
                        • STAT
                        • Product Updates
                        Moz Solutions
                        • SMB Solutions
                        • Agency Solutions
                        • Enterprise Solutions
                        Free SEO Tools
                        • Domain Authority Checker
                        • Link Explorer
                        • Keyword Explorer
                        • Competitive Research
                        • Brand Authority Checker
                        • Local Citation Checker
                        • MozBar Extension
                        • MozCast
                        Resources
                        • Blog
                        • SEO Learning Center
                        • Help Hub
                        • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                        • How-to Guides
                        • Moz Academy
                        • API Docs
                        About Moz
                        • About
                        • Team
                        • Careers
                        • Contact
                        Why Moz
                        • Case Studies
                        • Testimonials
                        Get Involved
                        • Become an Affiliate
                        • MozCon
                        • Webinars
                        • Practical Marketer Series
                        • MozPod
                        Connect with us

                        Contact the Help team

                        Join our newsletter
                        Moz logo
                        © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                        • Accessibility
                        • Terms of Use
                        • Privacy

                        Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.