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pageoneresults - 2:14 pm on Sep 3, 2008 (gmt 0)
Me too! I think we've probably seen some of the same ones. :) "Any real impact". < Okay, that one covers you. I've never seen any documented testing in this area other than the FAILed methods of using some obscure keyword in the keywords metadata only which isn't a test at all. "Or place little weight on..." < That one covers you too! :) If I were a search engineer, I'm going to utilize that element if it is there and if it is relevant. I think my algo is smart enough to determine if that element is being used properly or improperly. The keywords metadata element has been around since the dawn of SEO. So has the description metadata element. I remember a few years ago some hopped on the bandwagon that meta descriptions had little value. I think we all know what happened there in the past 12 months? To top that off, we have videos circulating on YouTube that state the meta description has little to no value in the overall scheme of things. < Can you believe that? Here's how I look at it. I've been using that element since the beginning. I still use it to this day. As long as I keep finding references to it at the W3, Search Engines, other indexing services, I will continue to use it. Can you tell me for sure that Google, Yahoo!, Live and Ask do not calculate the words within the keywords metadata element? Are we absolutely, positively sure? Static Site Take the <title>, meta description, <h> and first content after the opening <body> element. Extract 3, 6, 9, 12 words and/or phrases. Assemble them in order of importance, separate them with commas and be done with it. Takes about a minute and once it is done, you typically don't fiddle with them. Dynamic Site Many of the sites I've worked on have a separate area for entering keywords. These are used for on site search functions and to populate the keywords metadata. It's a no brainer and from my perspective still good practice. You just never know...
I've seen some pretty spectacular meta keyword elements over the years (5k meta keywords anyone?) But ever never seen any real impact on Google results in changing them, cleaning them omitting them, whatever. For that reason, I think it is a wise decision for a search engine to ignore or place little weight on the content of meta keywords.