keywords in meta data

phrases, repeats: will one word cover all usage

[Jabberwock]

As I understand it, Google disregards any Meta data keywords beyond 155 characters, which is not a lot of words (though my competitors on the first page SERP position have way more, but I put that down to their being much older sites). I have a small Computer Support business.

My question is this: is something like "computer support, windows support, router support" a waste of time? Should I just go more like "computer, support, windows, router"? Does Google (or BING and/or Yahoo) weigh the terms, or is the single word "support" going to cover all the bases?

-Bill

[Robert Charlton]

Jabberwock - Welcome to WebmasterWorld.

As I understand it, Google disregards any Meta data keywords beyond 155 characters...

For web rankings, Google doesn't use the meta keywords at all. Old myths die hard, but Matt Cutts and Google been very unambiguous about this.

See our earlier discussion, from 2009, in our Google SEO News forum, and watch the Matt Cutts video on the referenced Google Blog article....

Google doesn't use the keywords meta tag in web search
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3993019.htm [webmasterworld.com]

Google relies primarily on visible signals... eg, page title element and page content... and independent inbound links to a page.

When you mention 155 characters, I'm wondering whether you might be thinking about the number of characters Google displays in the "snippet" in the search results. Generally, this snippet is pulled from your meta description, and is limited to roughly 150 characters. The meta description does not affect rankings, but the highlighted terms in a snippet may well affect click-throughs, and a well written meta description for each individual page is worth the effort.

computer support, windows support, router support

Note that to a large extent, even after Panda, the unit of optimization is a page, and in targeting multiple terms like that, you might need individual pages. That said, it's unlikely that you'll get many searches for "router support placename". I would certainly describe all of these services on a Computer Support Placename page. I wouldn't expect to rank without the placename.

[Jabberwock]

Thanks Robert! I specifically read somewhere that the meta keywords were not recognized beyond the 155 characters, but there seems to be a lot of misinformation about keywords out there.

The link and the Matt Cutts posting clarify the issue nicely. For Yahoo and Bing I will still keep the meta keywords, though it's likely they ignore them as well.

I've kept the meta description in a format that looks sensible to viewers of the snippet, so I'm OK there.

[mikeavery11]

Now a days meta keywords is not a great matter of fact. Google count page title and page content specially and most of the inbound links to a page.

[tedster]

For Yahoo and Bing I will still keep the meta keywords, though it's likely they ignore them as well.

Bing's Duane Forrester posts here under the name "bingdude". He recently confirmed that Bing DOES use the meta keyword signal:

meta keywords is a signal. One of roughly a thousand we analyze. Getting it right is a nice perk for us, but won't rock your world. Abusing meta keywords can hurt you.

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