Keyword META tags

[Watch Me Sink]

Recently we received some questions about how Google uses (or more accurately, doesn't use) the "keywords" meta tag in ranking web search results. Suppose you have two website owners, Alice and Bob. Alice runs a company called AliceCo and Bob runs BobCo. One day while looking at Bob's site, Alice notices that Bob has copied some of the words that she uses in her "keywords" meta tag. Even more interesting, Bob has added the words "AliceCo" to his "keywords" meta tag. Should Alice be concerned?

At least for Google's web search results currently (September 2009), the answer is no. Google doesn't use the "keywords" meta tag in our web search ranking. This video explains more, or see the questions below.

The meta tag’s keyword attribute is not the page rank panacea it once was back in the prehistoric days of internet search. It was abused far too much and lost most of its cachet. But there’s no need to ignore the tag

Yahoo insists that they still use them. I personally think that META keywords tags should have been deprecated years ago. The system is too easy to abuse.

 

[prettylolita]

yahoo does still use them. My site is at the top of yahoo if you type in district 9 forum. But on google I made the second page. T_T and its heart breaking. I need to be on a google diet or something because I want to make the top 5 so badly.

 

[Watch Me Sink]

I actually have about the same in both, though Yahoo ranks me a little higher. I focus more on backinks and backlink text

 

[prettylolita]

I don't know much about back linking. but I try and work on my site. to make it better. I even worked on a new theme uploaded it and lost ranking on google. LOL!

 

[Rich Edmonds]

Keywords are useless.

 

[prettylolita]

yes they can be. But now I'm 8th rank on google. So happy one day that 5th spot will be mine.
^_^

 

[Watch Me Sink]

For which keyword? It isn't hard to be #1 on google for an easy to dominate keyword. For example I was #1 for "Disturbedmb" the second I was in google.

 

[Kino]

I've never really understood meta tags well. :\

 

[Murder he Wrote]

Keywords are useless.

What he said.

It's easy enough to get indexed using keywords within your domain, title tag, meta description and the site content. Never known keywords to have any effect whatsoever. Waste of time.

 

[Relmitos]

Meta tags dont mather alot anymore.
these do:

<title>
<h1>
<h2>
<h3>

 

[Fergal]

Some of the smaller search engines apparently still use meta tag keywords. If you've been doing any SEO work on your site you will most probably have selected your keywords. It only takes a minute to copy and paste them into your code as meta keyword tags. They won't do your site any harm and they may help you with smaller search engines. I agree the benefit is probably tiny, but the effort to include them is also tiny.

 

[Cosmic]

Some of the smaller search engines apparently still use meta tag keywords. If you've been doing any SEO work on your site you will most probably have selected your keywords. It only takes a minute to copy and paste them into your code as meta keyword tags. They won't do your site any harm and they may help you with smaller search engines. I agree the benefit is probably tiny, but the effort to include them is also tiny.

I agree. They only benefit rather than making it worse.

 

[Watch Me Sink]

Some of the smaller search engines apparently still use meta tag keywords. If you've been doing any SEO work on your site you will most probably have selected your keywords. It only takes a minute to copy and paste them into your code as meta keyword tags. They won't do your site any harm and they may help you with smaller search engines. I agree the benefit is probably tiny, but the effort to include them is also tiny.

Exactly my point here. Some people (not necessarily here) obsess over them. I have mine in just in case, but I don't consistently change them or whatnot. If a competitor put my forum's name in a keyword, I really wouldn't give a you-know-what.