Meta tag keywords with the same words in them.

[recoil]

I'm updating some older pages and was wondering about potential penalties from having keywords that start with the same phrase.  It's a geographic area so there is the "full name" and the abbreviated name.  I'd like to have keywords for both.

For example:

virginia beach, va beach, virginia beach attraction, virginia beach things to do, va beach attraction, va beach things to do, virginia beach dolphins tour, va beach dolphins tour

Is that spammy? I understand they don't have the same weight as they used to but I'd like to optimize for them anyway since I'm redoing some things.

Thanks in advance.

[recoil]

Thanks everyone.  I really appreciate the time and effort each of you spent helping a newbie.  I will stop using them completely.

[Hurf]

Forgive me, I'm a little confused by your post title. To be clear, are you referring to  <meta name="keywords" ...>which would contain a list of all of the keyword referenced within the page?</meta name="keywords" ...>

- If you are, you should know that Google drove a stake through the heart of that abomination years ago. Yahoo and Bing weren't paying much attention (if any) to these as of a few years ago, so this practice can be safely abandoned.

Meta Title and Meta Description are of value to users and a correctly titled page will give you some SEO benefit, so use these in accordance with these guidelines:

https://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag

https://moz.com/learn/seo/meta-description

If you are simply referring to the keywords within the body of your page, I recommend treating your copy as though it were conversation with a prospective customer; if you keep endlessly repeating the same thing in slightly different ways they're going to ignore you at first and then, if you persist, actively avoid you. So what you need to say without trying to say the same thing a thousand different ways; it's a huge turn off for visitors and Google will not reward you for it. That's not to say you can't repeat the phrase a couple of times throughout the copy, with a few slight variations on a theme, but don't labour the point. Read your copy out loud  - if you start to annoy yourself (or others) you know you've overdone it. Less is more.

And give Google credit; it's smart. There really is no need to endlessly feed it every variant going. Google have invested huge sums of money in getting smarter and semantic search (https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-101-semantic-search-care/119760/) is a big part of that.  I'd drop VA altogether (apart from the odd mention in a page or two - if it justified it because it added clarity and stick with 'Virginia Beach', building the main thrust/theme the site (or section of the site) around that, with separate pages for each specific activity or article focus 'dolphin tour' etc. Google will work it out without the need for you to shout at them.

Keep the end user at the forefront of your thinking when you're building your site, answer their questions, scratch their itches, and you'll be rewarded.

Use your keywords appropriately  not repetitively, regardless of the context.

Good luck!

Note to self: I must write quicker replies, two other people answered this while I was writing this!

[GastonRiera]

Hello Stephen,

A few years ago Matt Cutts said that google does not take into acount the meta keywords tag.
Here the youtube video: Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking

I have no information about being penalized for using that tag with keywords like that.
Honestly, very few sites uses them. And some SEOs consider that there is no risk other than your competitor knowing what your keywords are.

Best Luck.
GR

[ThompsonPaul]

It's not that they don't have the same weight - they have no weight, Stephen. Don't waste your time on them.

(In fact, you'll just be making it even easier for your competition to grab lists of the keywords you're targeting.)

Paul