META Keywords - Should I Use Them?
I just got finished reading a post by Danny Sullivan putting to rest the old debate of whether or not the META keywords tag needs to be used. For years people have wondered if using keywords in this tag would help them rank and how exactly the tag influences search results.
The Answer?
Google & Live/MSN - DO NOT support the META keyword tag.
Yahoo & Ask - DO support the META keyword tag.
What does this mean?
While Ask & Yahoo may use the tag for retrieving search results, the use of the tag for ranking purposes is almost nil. I must agree with Danny on this one, use the tags for misspellings if you just have to use them. Otherwise, forget about the tag all together and GO GET SOME LINKS!
Comments
I agree. Even those SE's that lookat it won't be putting much weight on them. Although Google is the most technologically advanced, Yahoo and Ask are advanced enough not to put much weight into the META keywords.
Posted by: Josh Spaulding | September 6, 2007 05:13 PM
Don't forget that Google uses the META tag "description" to display a summary of the web web site on the results page. This means you can control what searchers see when your page is displayed on a results page.
Gary
Posted by: Gary Sims | September 8, 2007 04:46 AM
Meta description tag is essential as was mentioned above. I noticed when it's left empty both Google and Yahoo! use DMOZ description.
On the orher hand after adding unique meta tags to each page Yahoo! rankings significiantly improved, G does not care needlesss to say.
Posted by: Randie S | September 11, 2007 11:49 AM
Obviously we're all very concerned with how Google sees us. However, if the meta keywords assist with Yahoo and Altavista, it's worth a few moments effort to add a line to your header.
Posted by: mlankton | September 17, 2007 06:00 AM
But the best thing is that if you put meta keywords it does not harm the website but directly or indirectly it will effect your search engine ranking,
Posted by: seo expert | September 18, 2007 02:27 AM
The meta keywords tag is least important because search engines do not consider it in ranking calculations and it's never seen by visitors or searchers (unlike the meta description tag, which displays beneath listings in the SERPs).
Posted by: Flowline | September 24, 2007 05:37 AM
i think metatag is not that important, but putting some does not harm the site anyway, so... :)
Posted by: thuquanvietnam | December 1, 2007 02:07 PM
I still use this meta tag on my clients' Web sites, even the tag doesn't help much, but it won't hurt your rankings (unless you brazenly keyword stuff them).
Posted by: Digital Frames | December 27, 2007 10:07 AM
I still use them, too. They do not hurt for sure, and they can help sometimes. And it really does not take any extra work to write them down - providing you have your keyword research results handy :)
Posted by: Mapquest | January 3, 2008 07:18 PM