Meta Keywords For SEO – Don’t Bother, Says Google

I guess we all knew it already, meta keywords didn’t really have any effects with regards to SEO, within Google at least. But most of us still use meta keywords from time to time and maybe even recommended others to do it.

The reasons for still using meta keywords are simple: While Google might not use meta keywords, other (smaller?) search engines might. Besides, who knows, maybe meta keywords might get reborn some time in the future (unlikely)?

If Google ranking is what you care about, then you might as well forget about meta keywords. Google made it official that they do not use the keywords meta tag in their web search.

Q: Why doesn’t Google use the keywords meta tag?
A: About a decade ago, search engines judged pages only on the content of web pages, not any so-called “off-page” factors such as the links pointing to a web page. In those days, keyword meta tags quickly became an area where someone could stuff often-irrelevant keywords without typical visitors ever seeing those keywords. Because the keywords meta tag was so often abused, many years ago Google began disregarding the keywords meta tag.

Matt Cutts, Google Software Engineer, says in his video (below), “The answer is, basically not at all” – to the question on how much they use the keywords meta tag in their main search results. “Basically not at all”….. “basically“…?

8 thoughts on “Meta Keywords For SEO – Don’t Bother, Says Google”

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  2. Basically? I’ve read in other blog that Google might not saying the truth all the time. Also using Meta tag keywords will help our blog with other search engines.

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  3. I really try to avoid making too many changes to what I already do when it comes to trying to generate search engine traffic, I find that if I constantly made changes I would lose the consistency that made my blog what it is now.
    .-= Extreme John´s last blog ..6 Alexa Review Chain Reviews =-.

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  4. Yes, basically. I will still encourage Meta Keywords to be used regardless what Google is saying. I don’t see the harm in placing the keywords, doing a little extra work will not harm the page either. Why not? ^^

    @wchingya
    Social/Blogging Tracker

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  5. I agree with all three of you, ZXT & John & Ching.

    Except, I haven’t really used meta keywords since I switched to Thesis theme. All In One SEO Pack used to do it automatically but I disabled it since I switched to Thesis, I need to make myself add a least a few keywords to every post, just for the other search engines out there.

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  6. Had heard about it some time back! Actually, I mostly use Meta Description rather than using Keywords for SEO.
    .-= Rohit Sane´s last blog ..Find Invisible or Offline people who are infact online on Facebook! =-.

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  7. That’s interesting. I used to think the same, but I figure why implement it if it’s not of any use at all. Everything has a use, no matter how small.

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    • As some of the other commentators also point out, other search engines might still use them (and Bing, who knows?).

      Personally, I don’t really use them in my posts… maybe I should add just a few.

      Reply

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