Keyword Meta Tag.....Who Cares

[cbrauer]

I don't know why poeple get so hung up on using keyword meta tags as if their site is not going to rank unless they are perfect........I will let you in on a little secret ..MOST SEARCH ENGINES (INCLUDING GOOGLE) NEVER USE KEYWORD META TAG DATA FOR ANYTHING, AND DON'T EVEN READ IT.

[Stuart Macfarlane]

Correction, it is used by Yahoo/Bing Spider Algoritym BUT in very very small moderation and is considered a minor part of SEO these days.

It's still a good concept and rule of thumb to maintain your main keyword in your meta tag.

[dvduval]

Yes, a do recall Matt Cutts saying that Meta Keywords is not even considered in their algorithm. What is much more important is making your site a true destination worth visiting.

[yukon]

I stuck a random non-related keyword in my sites meta-keyword tag for testing, Adsense started showing Ads for this keyword (I swear it happend, lol).

I cleared my history with Ccleaner, reset my modem, & used Chrome Incognito, went back to my site & the unrelated Adsense still shows.

I know this has nothing to do with the SERPs, just thought it was strange that it happend.

This was a blog post that had maybe 10 words, I also viewed the source code & did a page search to double check that this keyword was only located once in my meta-keyword tag.

This tells me that Google Adsense (maybe not search) still looks at the keyword tag.

[Stuart Macfarlane]

Updated my post as I made a hugh mistake!!
I ment to mention Yahoo / Bing not Google :P Just goes to show which search engine always springs to mind before any other!

To further enforce the primary post for GOOGLE only here is the official stance:
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking

[BenJackson]

Originally Posted by Stuart Macfarlane

Updated my post as I made a hugh mistake!!
I ment to mention Yahoo / Bing not Google :P Just goes to show which search engine always springs to mind before any other!

To further enforce the primary post for GOOGLE only here is the official stance:
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking

Great link! That's about as clear as it gets. I still use meta keyword tags out of habit and b/c of yahoo/bing. I tend to just list them there when I'm doing keyword research for a post/page and then refer to the tags while working on keyword density.

[paulgl]

Meta keywords are seen, but not for serps. Bing using meta keywords?
Well, maybe for something, but not for SERPs. Why would they use something
that can be abused?

They never "hurt." Even google tells you this. But the count squat for SERPs.
And isn't this the goal?

Bing:

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. Take advantage of all legitimate opportunities to score keyword credit, even when the payoff is relatively low. Fill in this tag’s text with relevant keywords and phrases that describe that page’s content.

Or, don't waste your time. Really. I think people use the meta keywords because they
can't give it up. It feels good. And they are scared shirtless that if they leave it off,
well, they are just bound to lose out. Silly.

Yeah. Like they can define legitimate opportunity.

Paul