Google: We Don’t Use Keywords Meta Tag
Monday, September 21st, 2009
Don’t bother with keywords meta tag, and focus description tag on what makes users click.
Spending time stuffing the keyword meta tags for your web page? Don’t bother.
That’s the official word from Google, which says it doesn’t consider what you put in your keywords meta tag at all. You may as well leave it empty. The company hasn’t used the keywords meta tag for many years because it was often abused.
For a while people have suggested that the keywords meta tag meant very little, if anything. But still a bunch of people have peddled the notion that they’re important. Countless search engine optimization packages analyze your description tags and keyword tags compared to competitors to try to decipher what you need to include in them. I know that I always put a couple keywords in for pages that I develop. So it’s good to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.
Also, that long page description you’ve been writing for your description meta tag? It doesn’t play a role in search rankings. But it is sometimes used in the search results display. So rather than stuff it full of keywords, just try to make it most relevant for potential visitors.
Even more important, focus on making your web site valuable to visitors.
Further Reading:
- Trademark Protection Firm Uses Trademarks in Its Meta Tags
- Parked Adds “Related Keywords” Editing Functionality
Tags: google, keyword meta tag
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Google: We Don?t Use Keywords Meta Tag – http://tinyurl.com/lppy2l
But, does Bing and Yahoo take notice of meta tags?
@ Domain Investor –
who?
Sometimes we forget that Google isn’t the only show in town.
Good news, I’m usually too lazy to put more than 5 or 6 keywords in the meta tag! This might be how porn sites used to get ranks for terms like ‘books’ or ‘shopping’.
While aware of this, I still populate my meta tags. Other search engines use that information to categorize the website, so better to have an extra item for one than to miss things for the remaining engines.
If description tags are pointless – please show me a #1 ranked site for a competitive term on Google that has NO description tag.
John – they aren’t pointless, they just aren’t used in the ranking algorithm. That’s not a theory; it’s straight from Google
I honestly have a hard time believing anything Google says – call me a skeptic but no one should ignore meta tags imo.
go to the search bar. not the web address bar. and type in.. kerrysdomain net .. you will see near page top. kerrysdomain. click it and see what meta search did to my page. then go to the http://kerrysdomain.net and thats what it was suposed to look like. i want to know. is there another way besides meta
[...] that it really matters. Google doesn’t consider keyword meta tags in its ranking algorithms (although Yahoo still does). And it’s not like they can actually [...]
on the subject of google. has anyone checked the google apps in your computer. if you have them. i saw lots of them that has to intrude on your privet information like your ip your name city state. what ever you do never give out your phone number in order to use a service. i am still locked out of facebook because i wont give mine out. and did you know you can make a complaint to the FTC on intrusion of privacy.