Google uses meta keywords

a little anyway

[Powdork]

[chat.abondance.com...]

and from the article

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

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.

I'm not sure when this is from but it is after Feb 2002. Also, it doesn't say who is actually answering the questions. Also, the french part could say it's all made up for all I know.

[curlykarl]

[translate.google.com...]

[Powdork]

That sure clears it up. I had no idea Matt Cutts works for the American Ministry of Defense.;)
Before I should have said "I'm not sure if it is Stephanie or Matt that is answering the question"

[MHes]

Thanks Powdork

So is this for real? It's interesting stuff.

[rcjordan]

>real

Appears so, that's Matt's picture anyway.

[Powdork]

Since this was over a year ago, I wonder if things have changed. I'm certainly not running to make sure all my meta keywords are there.

[ruserious]

In March ('03) during the conference Brett posted this:

[webmasterworld.com...]

When asked whether they supported meta keyword tags, all the crawlers but Inktomi said NO.

[ruserious]

Also it be kind of "stupid" to go hunting for hidden text (as has been confirmed from several trustworthy sources), but then use and weigh meta keyowrds for ranking. Don't you think?

[Powdork]

I don't think they use it AT ALL for ranking. Sometimes i wonder if they use it for other things like theming in some small way. Maybe its just something they look at to see the overall intentions of a webmaster during a hand check. Or more likely, they don't use them at all and Matt or Stephanie misspoke or was misquoted. I don't think you can trust someone from the American Ministry of Defense anyway :).

[Chris_D]

It is my understanding that Google will only uses Meta information (specifically meta name description) where there is no html on the page, and no DMOZ etc to rely on - but sufficent quantity of inbound links with the same link text.

I don't think its uses the meta description to rank the page - just to describe the page

eg Think of a site totally in flash. Totally in flash.

The site is so good, that heaps of (over 1,000) other sites link to it, with a simple two word phrase (eg like 'flash widgets').

Google follows the links, but can't see anything to index on the page. But over 1,000 other sites can't be wrong - so it indexes the site, relying on the link text - and Googles cache says "These terms only appear in links pointing to this page - 'flash widgets'

As there is no entry in DMOZ - then - and only then - Google uses the Meta name description tag to describe the site.

And thats what I think more or less happens.

Sticky me if you want an example of a site that conforms with this theory, and is in the top 5 of nearly 2 million serps (for an extremely competitive phrase) - month in, month out.

Chris_D

[Powdork]

Chris_D,
I agree, and I think that has been the consensus here for quite awhile. Thats why i found the comments from the interview to be so interesting.

[Oaf357]

Well whatever the case I'm trying a few pages out in a few different areas with keyword tags. We'll see what freshbot does with them (one page hasn't changed since last update). Then we'll see what the next deep crawl and update have to say.