Meta Keywords - Ignored or Negative

[shariseo]

I'm working on a site that still includes the meta keywords tag on a lot of pages. No one is actively spending time optimizing these (they are a legacy thing). I know this tag is ignored by most search engines, but I've heard speculations that just the presence of the tag on a site may actually be a negative factor. Does anyone have opinions or even concrete evidence whether or not meta keywords is a negative ranking factor? The tags on the site I'm looking at are not particularly spammy. It is a US based site doing business in the US.

[dennisjensen]

I have heard just about the same as you. No importance of any kind; could be seen as negative, if applied in a 'spammy' fashion. But, I have no hard evidence at all. However, we removed the tag completely from our soon-to-be new site. I expect no impact of any kind, just 'cleaning up'.

[tangor]

@shariseo ... Welcome to Webmasterworld!

meta keywords have been largely ignored for many years. I don't use them at all, and stopped using them completely by 2002. I've seen nothing negative for not having them, and truthful never saw anything positive when originally used.

YMMV

[faraz sayyed]

The meta keyword tag is ignored by many search engines but use of them doesn't have a negative impact on the ranking of the website. Many SEO experts avoid using meta keywords is because it unnecessarily increases the code size.

[nshep]

I also heard that they are basically ignored, unless used in a spammy way. If you are only optimizing for Google, you don't need them. Rumor has it that some other search engines still use meta keywords but unless you specifically want to optimize for those, you can forget about them.