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Thanks so much!! This is very helpful.

Hey all! First post on here, forgive me for being an SEO newb.

Are meta keywords still a thing? Here's why I ask, I read this article from back in 2009 that said they are absolutely not a ranking factor anymore: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html

However, in doing some research on our competition, I found that the top result for "Financial Advisor in Colorado Springs" was this company: http://www.strasbaughfinancial.com/

Honestly, the site seems to be doing everything opposite of what I read to do. It isn't even mobile responsive! With the Moz Bar, I found that no links pointing toward it. Not one video on the site (there is a link to a welcome video but the link is broken!!), no blog or regular content updates, no keywords in the H1 or H2 tags, page titles, etc. The website looks old and, frankly, terrible. Really I’m stumped how this can be ranking so high for so many competitive keywords.

Then I realized that they stuffed tons of keywords in the meta description and meta keywords. From what I can tell, this is the ONLY intentional SEO strategy they used. Am I missing something? Are meta keywords still a ranking factor and THAT important?