Google has revealed that it ignores the “keywords” meta tag in its web search ranking. Google’s Matt Cutts explains this in a Webmaster Central video
“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,” says Matt. “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.”
This does not mean that Google ignores all meta tags, the title tag is still a very powerful and critical search ranking factor, the “description” meta tag is often used to display the snippet of you web page in the search results, while this does not influence ranking it could be a used effectively to convert clicks by using appropriate call to action elements in your “description” meta tag.
Google also recognizes the “google,” “robots,” “verify-v1,” “content type,” and “refresh” meta tags. Information about how Google understands these can be found in the Google Webmaster Tools help center.
Matt Cutts referring to “keywords” meta tag says, “It’s possible that Google could use this information in the future, but it’s unlikely, Google has ignored the keywords meta tag for years and currently we see no need to change that policy.”
However it is possible that other search engines might use the information to influence search ranking but Google doesn’t.
41 comments
Thank you, you answered the question I have been searching for which was whether or not to place keywords when blog commenting.
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now Google is starting to have a selective measure by the customer, you can now choose which page will be first in the search by loging into your google account
Mefan fox fotos
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yes, you are right, looks like Google every time looks more like delicious.
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I do not worry about this. The average user (your customers), do not know about/understand these functions, they normally type in what the want and take the first couple of results.
Google is daily updating its algorithm and it makes sense with the current criteria of search results. These varying patterns for search results almost make difference in search ranking as well.
Its very interesting and useful info. Its new for me. thanks for this.
Thanks for this to you and Google. It will be very helpful in get ranking.
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Thanks for telling about new parameter of Google measure of page rank.
Ya it’s ignored mata keywords, it just consider meta description and tags!
I agree that people do abuse the keyword meta-tags, but you would be surprised at how few people know that Google ignores this. I freelance write articles for people, and they always insist on detailed keywords within their meta-tags, so I should pass this post along to them.
Makes sense really. Google is only responsible for one person – the searcher, and answers to such, anything which it believes gaming search results it will be against. As Keywords was so open to abuse, it makes sense to stop them (and it has done for ages, as have all major search engines).
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Its really a very interesting post.I liked it . Thanks & keep sharing.
Thanks for this post, you really did clear the whole thing up for me once and for all.
A client of mine has this buddy who keeps insisting that I add meta keywords to his webpage. That stuff is so 90’s I keep telling him. I really just find meta keywords and descriptions completely useless now … if your on-page content reflects the topic, there really shouldn’t be a need for the meta data. Only in CERTAIN situations would I ever use meta data again.
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Apart from on page content which is critical, I would recommend that you concentrate on your Title Tag and Title post or perma link structure, ensure that the ketwords you wush to target are used in the title tag and the title url of your post.
.-= ZK@Web Marketing Blog´s last blog ..Google ignores keywords meta tag in web ranking =-.
Hi,
Thanks mat cutts for clarification. For a longtime i was relying on keywords to get higher rankings.
Thanks
SEO is getting even harder.
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It makes sense that Google didn’t take meta tag as the ranking consideration. In fact, I don’t do too much on the meta tag because I believe that backlinks and quality content would help in ranking.
I recommend using relevant keywords in your title tags and perma link structure
.-= ZK@Web Marketing Blog´s last blog ..Google ignores keywords meta tag in web ranking =-.
Yes ZK, usually I did this in the All In One SEO Pack plugin whenever I wrote a post. I used to make the permalink to be different with the real title that showed to my readers (If I want to rank for the keyword).
Wow, I always had an assumption that they placed little emphasis on the tag, but I didn’t know that they completely ignored it. Great to know!
if I still use the keyword , do it hurts my PR ?
No, PR has nothing to do with the relevancy of meta tags
.-= ZK@Web Marketing Blog´s last blog ..Google ignores keywords meta tag in web ranking =-.
thanks, I was little bit worry about it
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I think this has been known for a while, but I do like that Matt does take the time to go over questions =D I do find it funny that someone would try to sue someone else over the use of it in the keywords meta tag, hehe =D
Till then,
Jean
So I guess heading tags are more important than meta tags? I think this is very helpful in on-page optimization so we can focus on the other important keywords that Google actually recognizes.
@457 Visa– you are right that its time to focus on other important keywords.
.-= DotComSecrets Review´s last blog ..Frank Kern’s Mass Control 2.0 Review =-.
every day google have a new way for their SERP and seo , real expert seo who are up to date with the latest SEO updates
thnaks 🙂
I have been searching for which was whether or not to place keywords when blog commenting.
I do like that Matt does take the time to go over questions =D I do find it funny that someone would try to sue someone else over the use of it in the keywords meta tag, hehe =D
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Thanks for this article! It helped me.
Hi,really very useful post and it was very interesting.Thanks for sharing the post…
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I’ve never been really big into the behind the scenes stuff like meta tags. I usually just try to focus on writing a solid title and using strong anchored backlinks. Do you recomment all in one SEO or headspace for SEO optimization?
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So, it confirmed that there is no more importance of meta tag, am i right?
Keyword meta tags are too easily abused, I don’t expect Google to begin using them again.
Wow…That was new to me..Everyday they come up with some new technique to make better
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Yeah this policy already exist for a long time ago. I see the point that meta keywords really are not useful, since it can be place for spammer.
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Keyword stuffing is not going to help folks! Hahahahah! Meta title and description are important, along with h headers and of course your keywords should be liberally sprinkled in your content, especially so in the first 100 – 150 words and the very last sentense of your content. That is what on page optimization is all about. Off page it is all about links from relevant high PR pages, with good link anchor text containing your primary targeted keywords.
Since other search engines still use those, it does not change anything.
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I think that’s what set Google aparts, I think most of the people doing SEO have Google the biggest task for their optimization and then comes Bing and Yahoo. And many don’t even consider Yahoo & Bing so it may be the case that with the growing number of SEO companies and experts, Google had to make sure that only genuine people win and these blackhat techniques should be blacklisted so only whitehat seo techniques can be applied and used by them. If the tags are irrelevant to the searches then I really support the exclusion of it because as a user, I would like Google to give me proper results rather than irrelevant ones.
Well thanks for the info ZK. I always knew somehow that Google doesn’t really care for the keywords tag on your site since they can index everything about your site, and they can choose the relevant keywords themselves. It’s just a legacy meta tag 🙂
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