Keywords meta tag - just 2 or 3 Kphrases

how about this for a theory

[stavs]

My theory (I have little to no evidence to suggest its validity - just a common sense feeling) is as follows:

(it relates to websites dealing with a specific topic only - in a highly competitive field!).

Why not use just 2 or 3 main key phrases in the keywords meta tag?

By adding all those peripheral words, surely the main phrases and KW's lose prominence.

Those peripheral words may get you a few hits from the minor search engines if you are lucky due to awkward and seldom used search phrases that your competition may not have thought of. But who cares about that, its volume of hits from major search engines that counts.

I'll give you an example: supposing your website sells hotel rooms in New York, why include words in the keywords meta tag such as; empire state building, new york times, subway, hot dogs, 5th avenue, central park....etc.

Why not just use the following:

"new york hotels, hotels in new york"

Wouldn't one gain an advantage over all the competition who lace their tags with 'padding' hoping for a few rogue hits.

I wonder if there are any websites out there that are brave enough to use just one Keyphrase in the keywords tag - therefore giving the phrase total prominence.

Would it work? Any takers on this discussion? I'm intrigued about this topic.

Regards, Stavs

[highman]

>I wonder if there are any websites out there that are brave enough to use just one Keyphrase in the keywords tag - therefore giving the phrase total prominence.

Yes we do, the keyword tag has little importance now anyway, and at the best only apply to words that actually appear on your page.

[Bolotomus]

Exactly, if you use meta-tag keywords you should be duplicating stuff that's on the page anyhow. In which case, you don't really need the meta-tags. I'm sick of meta-keywords anyhow. You don't need them. Highly ranked pages don't have them. And there's too much superstition associated with them.

[WebGuerrilla]

One of the hardest client management issues is trying to get them to let go of their bloated, meta tags. For fun, I always like to give them a position report on all the creative phrases they've stuffed in their tags.

As soon as they see that the tag has done nothing to bring them any traffic, they usually become a bit more willing to let me trim it down or remove it all together. :)

Less is More....

[mark_roach]

I have not used meta keywords for quite a while. I thought I might get a minor boost for not using them. Don't know whether I do or not though.

[mburgess]

While it has come around lately that meta-tags are starting to lose importance, I would not suggest leaving them out of your site completely. Some engines do weight these tags and it's better to be safe than sorry.

As for keyword counts, you shouldn't dilute your page with so many keywords. Focus on two to three specifc phrases and write your page copy around these. Any more than this will dilute your purpose anyway. Many clients like to jam the keywords meta-tag with nonsense phrases. When in reality, just because they mention it once in their tag doesn't mean that they're going to be found for it.

My suggestion is to stick with the main meat of each page, focus on 2-3 specific phrases per page and write highly optimized copy.

[makemetop]

>Why not use just 2 or 3 main key phrases in the keywords meta tag?

I do (keyword adjective adjective adjective). Apart from these, I ignore the keyword tag - but the ability to have your main key phrases in your HTML without penalty has got to be worth keeping - isn't it? I don't know if it helps much - but it certainly hasn't harmed me to date. On the whole, I agree with Highman's analysis.