Meta tag Keyword DOES matter

There is still value (some) in meta keyword.

[awcabot]

The debate about the importance of meta tag keyword raged long ago and seems to be winding down to: it doesn't matter one bit. Actually to my surprise (on Google at least) it matters, it matters precisely one bit.

I found out that if there is a keyword in my meta tags which does not appear anywhere else on the visible web, the page will be pulled up as a result in Google. E.g. if I have the word 'widgets' in the meta keyword tag, my page will never be in the SERPs. But if I have the word 'uijets' in the meta keyword and 'uijets' does not appear anywhere else the Google database, the page will be listed in the results pages.

[Mohamed_E]

This explains the statement by Matt Cutts or Stephanie Kerebel in a joint interview for a French website [chat.abondance.com...]

Q. Jean-Delatour: Is it still necessary to fill up the meta-keywords?

A. Not clear who answered:I think that we're open to either kind of deal. Let's see. Google uses meta-keywords, but not as much as most other search engines. I would still include them, but don't worry about putting a ton of effort into it.

So they use them, like the meta description, when all else fails.

Neat factoid :)

[2_much]

Yes, I've seen this too. We've had experiments around here that have proved this. I often throw misspellings into the keyword meta tag.

[Robert Charlton]

I saw evidence of this last night... in a search on Google for a three-word phrase that returned 33 pages in an atw search, with 0 pages matching the phrase exactly. This page came in #3.

Two words of the phrase were in the meta description; none were in the meta keywords, and the meta description was returned as the snippet. The page was totally graphic with an irrelevant title and four backlinks with nothing relevant to the search in (or near) the anchor text.

My guess is that Google counts the description higher than the keywords, because in some cases it's visible.

It would be interesting to see how competitive a search needs to be before the meta tags don't seem to matter any more. That would give us an idea what words are worth going after in the metas. The number of competing pages (for atw/exact searches) would be a very sloppy measure, but it's some sort of rough indication.

[michael heraghty]

Yes, I've recently seen my meta description used as Google's description of my site...

[Fruit and Veg]

I always use a keywords and description tag. It only takes 2 seconds out of my measly little existence and you ain't going to get banned because of it (obviously if you're sensible with the copy), so go ahead.

Do it during the TV adverts or something, or while you're dropping the kids off at the pool ;)

[Michael Weir]

Me too. I've always approached the KW meta tag with a "it doesn't help nor hinder" attitude. A content page just seems incomplete without a meta keywords tag, IMO.