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View Full Version : Think Google Uses the Meta KeyWord Tag? Think Again. They Don't



vangogh
09-21-2009, 03:56 PM
Google has made it official. They do not use the meta keyword tag when ranking web pages. You don't have to take my word for it. You can read the appropriately titled Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html) from the Google Webmaster central blog. The post even includes a video from Matt Cutts.

From the post:



Q: Does Google ever use the "keywords" meta tag in its web search ranking?
A: In a word, no. Google disregards keyword metatags completely. They simply don't have any effect in our search ranking at present.


Yes I know Google is not the only search engine and so I know some of you will continue to hold on to the usefulness of meta keywords for other search engines. However if you spend more than 30 seconds on meta keywords for any page of your site, you really are wasting your time.

How to use meta keywords if you insist on using them
If you do want to use meta keywords understand that at best they're going to help you rank for the least competitive words and phrases. If you add a phrase to the meta keywords tag and I add that same phrase to the page content, my page will rank above yours.

The best use of meta keywords is for misspellings of keywords. You don't want to have words spelled wrong in your content, but no one will see your meta keywords. If you sell furniture and discover that people often type funriture then add funriture to your meta keywords tag.

Of course even that won't help you with Google. And again don't take my work for it. Read the post linked to from above that comes directly from Google.

Harold Mansfield
09-21-2009, 04:30 PM
Google has made it official. They do not use the meta keyword tag when ranking web pages. You don't have to take my word for it. You can read the appropriately titled Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html) from the Google Webmaster central blog. The post even includes a video from Matt Cutts.

From the post:



Yes I know Google is not the only search engine and so I know some of you will continue to hold on to the usefulness of meta keywords for other search engines. However if you spend more than 30 seconds on meta keywords for any page of your site, you really are wasting your time.

How to use meta keywords if you insist on using them
If you do want to use meta keywords understand that at best they're going to help you rank for the least competitive words and phrases. If you add a phrase to the meta keywords tag and I add that same phrase to the page content, my page will rank above yours.

The best use of meta keywords is for misspellings of keywords. You don't want to have words spelled wrong in your content, but no one will see your meta keywords. If you sell furniture and discover that people often type funriture then add funriture to your meta keywords tag.

Of course even that won't help you with Google. And again don't take my work for it. Read the post linked to from above that comes directly from Google.

Ha. That's good news because I never put much weight on them anyway. I honestly never though that something that looks so insignificant and that can easily be anything that the webmaster wants it to be, carried much weight anyway.

KristineS
09-21-2009, 04:32 PM
I've known for a while that they weren't using them much anymore. Too many people were trying to manipulate them for a better ranking. So this isn't really a surprise, but it is always nice to get confirmation.

vangogh
09-21-2009, 06:45 PM
This wasn't a surprise to me either. I just wanted to toss it out there since there are still people who insist that meta keywords are an important part of seo. Now again to be clear the above is from Google and not the other search engines so I'm sure some will still cling to meta keywords and use the other engines as justification.

At least this could be something we refer people to whenever they think Google cares about meta keywords. I think they make it very clear they don't use them for ranking purposes.

cbscreative
09-21-2009, 07:05 PM
I have long suspected that Google does use the meta keywords tag, but in a different sense than what people expect. Think about all those sites that compile a standard list of keywords and then use the same list on every page of their site. I'm pretty sure that Google takes note of this and bumps down the ranking. If the word does not actually appear on the page, I believe they use that to penalize the ranking too. Other than that, I have long believed that the experts were right in saying Google does not use it. Only now, it's official.

Harold Mansfield
09-21-2009, 07:26 PM
And like you said, that is just Google. They still may be important for other reasons, particularly if you have your site listed in directories and mini SE's like Technorati, bookmarking sites like Digg (I know my bookmarking script auto populates them), and have your feed syndicated in different RSS directories.

billbenson
09-21-2009, 10:44 PM
They simply don't have any effect in our search ranking at present.

This is one reason I think you should still put them in. To my knowledge, the tag hasn't been depreciated so it's possible it may have an effect in the future. I didn't read the article, just your post, VG, but although they may not do something today, G is famous for changing their mind. Also, I don't always believe everything they say although I doubt they have much use today.

I also agree with CB Steve, in that a laundry list for meta keywords, the same on every page, may have a negative effects. At best its poor design, at worst its spam.

I'm not disagreeing with you VG. I'm just saying for the two extra minutes on a page, I'll put them in.

vangogh
09-22-2009, 02:04 AM
You're welcome to use them. I think the at the moment part of the phrase was just G's way of covering itself. Meta keywords are just too easy to spam to be useful again. 2 minutes might not seem like much, but taken across a site the time adds up. There are so many other things you can do in that time that would be more useful.

nealrm
09-23-2009, 09:07 AM
While the document was about Google non-use of the keyword tag, I think thier comment about the description tag was more interesting.

Even though we sometimes use the description meta tag for the snippets we show, we still don't use the description meta tag in our ranking.

rezzy
09-23-2009, 10:52 AM
This goes back to, just make great content, that people want to link to. Trying to create the special sauce combination to trick Google or move your site up will always fail.

This is the general idea everyone should follow.

vangogh
09-23-2009, 10:54 AM
That's been common knowledge for awhile now too. The generally accepted way to use meta descriptions is to write a unique meta description for every page of your site, not because it will help in ranking, but because if it does show as the snippet below your link in search results, it can significantly affect whether or not the link is clicked. Think of them as mini-ads.

cbscreative
09-23-2009, 03:29 PM
I read long ago from multiple sources that when you write a meta description, it should be "just the facts" and not sales talk. It needs to be compelling to pull people in, but any kind of pitch will usually backfire. When I use them, I prefer to stick with a single, short sentence that accurately summarizes the content of the page so potential visitors will want to know more.

vangogh
09-23-2009, 05:17 PM
Maybe a better word choice would have been mini-opportunity. I didn't mean to imply they should read like an ad, though I do think you should write your meta descriptions in a way that entices someone to click on them.

For everyone wanting a counter view to the original article in the thread here's one from John Andrews called Meta Tags and SEO for Google (http://www.johnon.com/700/metatags-google.html). John talks meta tags in general, though most of his post is focused on the meta keyword tag.

cbscreative
09-23-2009, 08:27 PM
I figured that's what you meant, vangogh, I just thought I'd throw in some clarification.

vangogh
09-23-2009, 08:35 PM
Yeah, I figured you knew, but it was a good call to make it clearer.

Paper Shredder Clay
09-25-2009, 12:36 PM
I seen that in my RSS feeds yesterday. It doesn't surprise me that Google would do that.


Google has made it official. They do not use the meta keyword tag when ranking web pages. You don't have to take my word for it. You can read the appropriately titled Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html) from the Google Webmaster central blog. The post even includes a video from Matt Cutts.

From the post:



Yes I know Google is not the only search engine and so I know some of you will continue to hold on to the usefulness of meta keywords for other search engines. However if you spend more than 30 seconds on meta keywords for any page of your site, you really are wasting your time.

How to use meta keywords if you insist on using them
If you do want to use meta keywords understand that at best they're going to help you rank for the least competitive words and phrases. If you add a phrase to the meta keywords tag and I add that same phrase to the page content, my page will rank above yours.

The best use of meta keywords is for misspellings of keywords. You don't want to have words spelled wrong in your content, but no one will see your meta keywords. If you sell furniture and discover that people often type funriture then add funriture to your meta keywords tag.

Of course even that won't help you with Google. And again don't take my work for it. Read the post linked to from above that comes directly from Google.

vangogh
10-08-2009, 11:49 AM
Just saw this and thought it relevant here. Yahoo announced they've dropped the meta keywords tag for ranking (http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/020918.html). They mentioned it at an seo conference. If I notice something on one of their blogs I'll post a link to it.

Bill Slawski
10-09-2009, 09:48 AM
I remember when AltaVista started allowing Meta Keywords for pages, and told webmasters in the FAQ page that they could use up to 1024 characters in the tag. It seemed like a lot - but it sounded like it was worth trying. With that many characters, you could easily have 100 words in your tag.

Bing appears to support meta keywords, at least as long ago as July 17th:

Bing - Head?s up on <head> tag optimization (SEM 101) - Webmaster Blog - Bing Community (http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/webmaster/archive/2009/07/18/head-s-up-on-lt-head-gt-tag-optimization-sem-101.aspx)

vangogh
10-09-2009, 11:59 AM
Alta Vista predates me. I didn't really get on board until Google was early in its ascent.

Thanks for the link. It's interesting that Microsoft seems to be encouraging the tag. Hard for me to see how they can be a useful metric given how easy they are to spam, though search engines have evolved to the point where they should be able to separate the spam from the legit use of the tag.

A few points from their mention of the meta keyword tag:


The <meta> tag’s keyword attribute is not the page rank panacea it once was

It was abused far too much

But there’s no need to ignore the tag. Take advantage of all legitimate opportunities to score keyword credit, even when the payoff is relatively low.

Choose words that may be secondary keyword terms (save the primary keywords for use in the <title> and <meta> description tags)

Don’t repeat a keyword more than 4 times among the keywords and phrases in the list

There's more in the article, but those few things stood out to me.

I wonder how much weight Bing gives to meta keywords and if they'll eventually drop them as a ranking signal the way the other engines have. If I'm not mistaken Bing is the last holdout.

cbscreative
10-09-2009, 01:42 PM
I'm not too surprised that Bing uses the tags since it is the next generation of MSN Search. The old MSN was notorious for using the description tag for displaying with search results.