[This is part of the The Blogger’s Essential Guide to Search Engine Optimization Series.]
I’ve been asked this more than a few times and the answer is fairly simple:
Do you use meta keywords?
The answer is yes but it’s not necessarily required. In fact, many people don’t (and there’s good reasons why – read on!). Of course, what’s more important is meta descriptions.
But here’s the thing: Most search engines don’t use them for search engine page results and don’t count them in their rankings as significant signals in their algorithms. In fact, a few years ago Google shared that they don’t actually use them in search engine results:
In a word, no. … Our web search (the well-known search at Google.com that hundreds of millions of people use each day) disregards keyword metatags completely. They simply don’t have any effect in our search ranking at present.
You might breathe a sigh of relief but the reason that I still use them is that there’s still the possibility that they could be used in the future (however unlikely that is, and it’s very unlikely) and it doesn’t hurt anyone to have them in the first place, especially since they are easy to add.
Here is Matt Cutts sharing his thoughts about it candidly and directly:
[tentblogger-youtube jK7IPbnmvVU]
But what about Bing or Yahoo’s search engine? Bing has said explicitly the following:
But there’s no need to ignore the tag. Take advantage of all legitimate opportunities to score keyword credit, even when the payoff is relatively low.
I agree with this and again, as I stated before, there’s no harm in having them just like there’s no harm in having a picture of Iron Man on you Macbook Air even if people tell you that it doesn’t actually make you blog faster and more effectively (but it does, I swear…)!
So what are your thoughts? Do you use meta keywords? What’s your take?
[This is part of the The Blogger’s Essential Guide to Search Engine Optimization Series.]
I use them, but mainly for just the reasons you mentioned. They don’t take any time to add, they don’t hurt my blog, and other search engines use them.
Also, I find they help me focus my blog content a little better. If I cannot think of a couple good keywords for a blog post, then my post is probably not focused well enough.
very good. i think they can passively help blog focus, for sure.
I echo everything you said. I take the time to find the best keywords for my posts and use them as metatags. I figure that I need them for natural placement within my post, my title, and the URL so why not store them where the meta tags go as long as I’ve already done the work of finding them. I also consider that what people are searching for is not likely to change much so no matter where I need to use keywords in the future (however search engines decide to recalculate things) then I still have my keywords tucked away as meta tags so I can retrieve them and place them where ever they are needed. It is also handy when I write similar posts because instead of researching keywords again I can refer to the other post to see what keywords I have stored away and use some in my current post and title that I may not have used for previous post. That way I can eventually use all of the good keywords I found.
Besides that, doesn’t Google still use meta tags for AdSense?
they do… but not keywords:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=79812
I always assumed that Google looked at meta keywords so I added them accordingly. Thanks for this post, I’ll start paying more attention to my meta description now and start refining the use of keywords there – without spamming it of course.
Did anyone else get a different video than the Matt Cutts one in their RSS reader? I got the following video: http://oi55.tinypic.com/kdk1s4.jpg
Thanks for the dose of trance John, a guy after my own heart
lol
that’s really odd. taking a look.
Key words are importand and I recommend that everyone use them, but not for the search engines. I fact my suggestion is that you learn to write for you and your readers, not search engines. Weirton good contentfirstis much more important to search rankings. By having good contentyouwillget more links to your articles.
Now, that leaves an interesting question. If I suggest that you not write for search engines, and if your average reader will not see key words, then why do I say they are very import ant? As I said before, write for yourself and your readers. The key words should be for you. Use them as a guide for your writing to help make sure you are targeting the key words you want to attract readers for. If you don’t have any idea what words, phrases, topics, … You are trying to get readers for, then you won’t write to target those words.
Of course, you could go old school and write them on a piece of paper, but then what happens if you go back to edit the article and no longer have that paper.
The added potential for a slight boost, at least in theory, adds to this argument, but by training yo itself to think of your readers instead of the search engine, you will actually improve your search ranking.
thanks for these thoughts nick the geek.
i think you have some valid points on how it can help you think about your readers better!
This is one SEO topic that keeps coming up. It reminds me of the egg dispute. Remember when they were so bad for you and now they are saying they are good for you?
I sopped using them simply because they weren’t necessary and I got lazy. Recently I have seen more evidence to use them again.
Ok, so spill! What are you doing/using to add keywords to Standard Theme?
we’re looking into building this in more succinctly…
i “might” be testing this out… 
I love it when 8bit “tests” things out.
very informaing post! I have really enjoyed this series!
By the way, your posts and a few other people have inspired me to redesign my site… It is up and running now! Let em know what you think if you have any time to check it out!
brandon,
great stuff bro! the background is very…. blue.
Thanks for the info. This confirms my thoughts. I’ve been using meta keywords but not spending tons of time on them.
Also, nice MBP skin!
thanks melanie!
I have read in an SEO beginner’s guide that indeed meta keywords is not use in search engine rankings by search engines anymore. Unlike the old days of SEO wherein this is a vital cog to increase rankings.
So out of curiosity, I tested this claim in my blog. I tried not to input meta keywords in my site and posts. Back then my Alexa ranking was 24 million (ok so my blog site is new..just more than 2 months old). Then I inputted keywords in the site and each posts. Boom! Rankings went up to 15 million. After I am not sure anymore if meta keywords really is not used.
hm.. can you show graphs and more data?
I decided to try Scribe to optimize the content on a few of my sites and it’s been interesting to see the results. One of the things the software does is to check that you’ve included all of the meta information and then compare what you’ve written with what you “think” you’ve written about based on the keywords you used.
I haven’t used it long enough to be able to report on its effectiveness but it’s definitely made me think more about what I’m hoping will bring people to a particular post. Sometimes I blog just to WRITE and I don’t want to fool with “let me focus on sprinkling this prose with keywords,” but sometimes I am hoping to rank for particular terms. I guess the main thing I’m learning from using Scribe is that I am not always as focused as I think I am.
i’ve tried scribe and didn’t like it very much. let me know if you stick with it long-term!