Meta Keywords Importance?

by Codith
8 replies
  • SEO
  • |
Are these factors still important? Let me dig into why I am asking.


My clients site is struggling to rank locally, it just will not budge.

Domain name is 14 years old
DA-16 PA-30

All the on page work is the way it needs to be but when I run screaming frog it is telling me that are 0 meta keywords returning on any of the pages, not one.

I reviewed some of the top competitors, all their domains are 10 years younger, lower DA and PA. They have 1/5 of the links (and not even decent ones). They don't create any new content at all. They are all located in the exact same area maybe 5 minutes from each other.

I am trying to determine what could be the route cause of their pages being brought up higher. The only things I can think of are:

Google+ reviews (top site has over 100) (second has over 60) (ours only has 3)
Meta Keywords (their sites are loaded with the key ones).

Are there other factors I could be missing here?
#importance #keywords #meta
  • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
    Could be the importance of the links that are going to those other sites.

    Reviews definitely do play a role.

    Not sure what your definition of "All the on page work is the way it needs to be" is.

    No clue what basic tests you've performed (ie site speed comparisons).

    More content isn't always the best solution. Optimizing most pertinent content is better.

    No clue what "ranking locally" entails for you. Big city? Sticks in the woods?

    No clue what the competition is for what ever your client is in.

    Got video?

    Sometimes you can bypass ranking the actual site if you've got it ranking from enough other sources.

    Is the name of the site brand specified? Local location references drilled into the site?
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Originally Posted by Codith View Post

    Are these factors still important? Let me dig into why I am asking.


    My clients site is struggling to rank locally, it just will not budge.

    Domain name is 14 years old
    DA-16 PA-30

    All the on page work is the way it needs to be but when I run screaming frog it is telling me that are 0 meta keywords returning on any of the pages, not one.

    I reviewed some of the top competitors, all their domains are 10 years younger, lower DA and PA. They have 1/5 of the links (and not even decent ones). They don't create any new content at all. They are all located in the exact same area maybe 5 minutes from each other.

    I am trying to determine what could be the route cause of their pages being brought up higher. The only things I can think of are:

    Google+ reviews (top site has over 100) (second has over 60) (ours only has 3)
    Meta Keywords (their sites are loaded with the key ones).

    Are there other factors I could be missing here?

    Counting links is useless because something like nofollow links aren't ranking pages.

    Nobody is ranking pages because of meta keywords, Google+ or old domains.

    Followed links from authority webpages (not domains) are the root source of ranked pages.
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  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    What Yukon said.

    I haven't used the meta keywords tag since about 2008.
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  • Profile picture of the author wdcbangalore
    meta keywords are not important for google bot, but for other search engines it does. Yahoo, bing and other smaller search robots do care about these keywords...
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  • Profile picture of the author raxix
    Yes, I used meta keywords, It's a positive point for you to write meta keywords rather than left it empty.

    I know Google show no importance to them but may be I think other search engines give some priority to meta keywords that's why I write them every time.
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    • Profile picture of the author validseo
      Meta Keyword Tag is GREAT for keeping track of the target keyword for each page. Google might not do much with it, but when properly used it is a great way to get organized. It lets you know how to check how a page is doing. It lets you look for multiple pages targeting the same keyword. When it is not present it lets you know that the page hasn't been tuned yet.
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      • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
        Originally Posted by validseo View Post

        Meta Keyword Tag is GREAT for keeping track of the target keyword for each page.
        Yes! And it helps your competitors to keep track of the keywords you want to target. What a great thing this is!

        Next step: wire transfer cash straight to your competitor's bank account.

        Originally Posted by raxix View Post

        Yes, I used meta keywords, It's a positive point for you to write meta keywords rather than left it empty.

        I know Google show no importance to them but may be I think other search engines give some priority to meta keywords that's why I write them every time.
        You know it doesn't really do anything, but you feel that it's positive "because of reasons", so you keep doing it. I'm sorry, but I find this hilarious. I bet someone could write a smashing comedy sketch out of this.

        To be fair, I hear Bing uses meta descriptions. Mostly to see if you're a spammer, but that's still counts. Right?
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        Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

        What's your excuse?
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  • Profile picture of the author SoCal Digital
    Google has stated that they don't factor in the Meta Keywords tag into their algorithm. So if that being true you don't need to use the Meta keywords tag.

    I do think that Title, Description, Heading tags etc. are extremely important for the On-page. You also have a point about the reviews which for local businesses are key. Do you have reviews on Yelp, Yellowpages, City Search etc?
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