Search Engine Optimization Tip #4: The Meta Keywords tag
By Bill Hartzer
Recently I decided to start compiling a series of search engine optimization tips. Each search engine optimization tip will be very specific, should not take a long time to fix (or to check to see if you are following the search engine optimization best practices), and will be rather “short and sweet” and directly to the point.
For this fourth search engine optimization tip, I thought I would talk about the meta keywords tag. Depending on who you talk to, some SEOs will tell you to use the meta keywords tag and some will tell you not to use the meta keywords tag. I personally still like to use add it to web pages. Here’s why:
The meta keywords tag is still an acceptable, real meta tag. The meta keywords tag can be helpful in cases where pages are very light on content. By adding a meta keywords tag you have the opportunity to add additional content to the page and add related keywords. A Google engineer recently has told me that “they index everything on the page”, and I took that as meaning just that: they index all the content on the page. So, in cases where a page is lighter on content, adding an additional set of keywords–in a place that is acceptable–might help out a bit.
The meta keywords tag, however, is certainly not a “miracle cure” to search engine rankings, and some search engines might ignore the tag altogether. However, I have yet to see a search engine give a web page a penalty because they were using the meta keywords tag on the page. Certainly I have seen meta keywords tags that are “keyword stuffed” and not used properly. If you are “keyword stuffing” then you ought to be banned from the search engine.
In my previous search engine optimization tips, I’ve talked about putting your keyword phrase in the title tag, I’ve talked about putting your keyword phrase in the meta description tag, and I have talked about working your keyword phrase into the body copy or “text” on your web page. I think it is a search engine optimization “best practice” to add the right keyword phrases to your meta keywords tag on your web page. So, in the case of this web page, I would probably add the following keywords to the meta keywords tag:
meta keywords tag, keywords, keyword phrase, keywords phrases, meta tag, search engine optimization
In the case of the meta keywords tag I think it’s important to add the keywords that are important to the specific page where that meta tag is placed; I do not like to add too many or too few keywords. And again, no keyword stuffing.
I know I could go on an on debating whether or not you should add the meta keywords tag to web pages. We have only really seen it not being used as much by the search engines because too many people have misused it in the past. If the meta keywords tag is used properly, there is no search engine penalty for using it. In fact, with the recent launch of the Cuil.com search engine that focuses on “on-page factors” rather than “off-page factors”, we might just see more and more people focusing on optimizing their web pages rather than building links to their web sites; and we might just see people start to use the meta keywords tag again.
Published Jul, 30th 2008 at 10:35 am in The Vizion Search Engine Optimization Blog, Search Engine Optimization. Follow responses to this entry via the RSS 2.0 feed.
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July 30th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
I’ve recently begun developing a tool to analyze these keywords, and to see if they’re good enough for your website. Feel free to try it out on: http://seo.mattiasgeniar.be/ . It’ll present you with a list of occurences of keywords, in body/title-tags, and give tips when applicable.
August 2nd, 2008 at 6:43 am
You’ve missed the two most important points, yes it may be a perfectly acceptable meta tag, but the way a large portion of web sites use it, makes it totally unacceptable to Google. Also what it was designed to do in the first place, boost rankings, it no longer does which makes the whole thing pointless in the first place. I’ve just posted on this subject in a blog - http://www.webmarketingadvisor.com/SEO-blog/keyword-meta-tag-meta-useless
August 12th, 2008 at 1:11 am
Meta keywords are important for a web page ranking but i find the title tags to be the ultimate tool to ensure a good SERP. Mojah, just checked out your tool..found it pretty useful.