Can You Ignore Optimizing The Keyword Meta Tag?
Oh, the poor abused Keyword Meta tag! Bringing up the rear at Number #3 of quasi-debatable importance in our discussion of tags/Meta tags, is the poor Keyword tag. It’s true. This Meta tag has been so used and finally abused by SEO spammers of days gone by, that now you WILL NOT gain better search engine ranking help via this Meta tag. Oh well.
Yup … the spammers took real advantage of this tag in the early days of the Internet. They learned that they could insert keywords — ANY and/or ALL types of keywords — into this tag and wow! They would get search engine recognition for those words. And they didn’t even have to use the keywords within the body of their web page’s text.
Unfair?? You bet! And as always happens, the search engines got smart, and they changed the algorithms and now, well there are many SEO experts that don’t even waste a second on optimizing the Keyword Meta tag. Not for their own websites or for their clients sites.
So, What’s An Honest Website Owner To Do?
I’ll tell you what you ought to do from my viewpoint as a professional SEO consultant. Go ahead and ethically optimize this Meta tag with your primary keyword (or keyword phrase) that you are targeting to the page, and add in three or four other keyword “modifiers”. That’s it. Remember that you will not gain any ranking points from the search engines. Many of the engines don’t even take a second look at this Meta tag anymore.
As an example, for this blog post I could use: “keyword meta tag, search engine optimization, seo”.
So, though many highly regarded SEO gurus may be chuckling as I offer you this suggestion, I am of the opinion that let’s go ahead and properly optimize the Keyword Meta tag. Because who knows? Maybe way up in the future this Meta tag WILL gain back some algorithmic weight and guess what? You will be ready. You won’t have to go back over all your web pages, inserting Keyword Meta tag information.
Where Is This Meta Tag Located?
You’ll normally find this Meta tag placed beneath the Title and Description Meta tag in the <HEAD> section of your pages’ HTML code:
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Your Title is inserted here.</TITLE>
<META NAME=”DESCRIPTION” CONTENT=Your targeted keyword description goes here.>
<META NAME=”KEYWORDS” CONTENT=Your keywords go here, separated by a comma.>
</HEAD>
That’s about it. Again, I DO recommend you optimize the Keyword Meta tag. I DON’T believe there is any search engine ranking weight in it at all. However, with all things in the world of SEO, we just never know when once again, this Meta tag will become important ranking-wise. Pay attention to it, but don’t fret over it, either.
Do you need help in determining which keywords to use in your content to help you get targeted traffic? No problem. It doesn’t cost a cent to give the Free Trial version of Wordtracker a try. I highly recommend it!
The Keyword Meta Tag – Optimization Rights & Wrongs
Stuffed and/or Spammed Keyword Meta Tags are Relics of the Past!
I can’t believe my eyes when I come across keyword meta tags that have been recently “optimized” using an out-dated and totally wrong method! Meaning … I find a keyword stuffed tag! And even worse, stuffed with one word terms that will NEVER EVER do any good ranking-wise for the site!
Incredulously, many of the sites where I see these extremely amateurish stuffed tags have supposedly been optimized by a “knowledgeable SEO specialist”. Come on people … this is the year 2008! Stuffing keywords is a thing of the ancient past! So is using more than eight keyword phrases! These techniques are loooooooong gone! :D
After 1998, when Lycos dropped its ranking recognition of the keyword meta tag, and then in 2000 when AltaVista and Inktomi stopped paying attention to it, there was really little if any reason for people to optimize this tag. (Google never did pay any attention to it.) Spammers had defeated its once useful purpose via fraudulent keyword stuffing.
The spammers inserted keywords that had nothing to do with the on-page content, thusly the terms “keyword tag stuffing” and “keyword tag spamming” became know as black-hat techniques.
To show you a real example of what is a very wrong, and very poor use of a keyword meta tag, here is a website that was recently tweaked for improved navigation and other issues, including (supposedly) optimization of all the Title and meta tags that had previously been ignored. I have knowledge of this site, as this is an individual who choose not to hire me for my services. Obviously her loss … not mine!
OK … I have removed a few terms to provide anonymity to the site owner, but take a look at this meta tag – and no, I am NOT making this up:
- META name=”keywords” content=”ND, naturopathic, naturopathic medicine, emedicine, natural medicine, hormone replacement, alternative medicine, ND, complementary medicine, CAM, supplements, [name of state] naturopathic doctors, healing, health, healthy, healthier, natural supplements, [abbreviation of state], phone, consults, consulation, NMD, consultation, Weil, homeopathy, homeopathic medicine, cholesterol, heart disease, prevention, men’s health, botanical, Xymogen, detox, oil, vitamin, prostate, women’s health, menopause, bio-identical, mind-body, skin, dysbiosis, probiotic, inflammation, progesterone, GI, Alzheimer’s, dementia, Huperzine, osteoporosis, nature, anti-aging, estrogen, testosterone, counseling, Caribbean, speaker, fatigue, [another state-nonrelated to this person's business], [yet another state-nonrelated to this person's business], [another country-nonrelated to this person's business], neurotransmitters, targeted amino acid therapy, depression, anxiety, non-drug, insomnia, [11 names of cities located near the place of business], free-lance, writer”
Oh my goodness! Holy smokes! 81 keywords and/or keyword phrases! And even if the search engines gave a lot of ranking value to the keyword meta tag, almost all of these terms would NEVER EVER EVER do anything to help get this website a higher ranking for those terms.
Why? Well … just how competitive do you think the terms “oil” or “consults” are?? But more importantly, how general and non-targeted to the site’s niche are these terms? I’ll tell you … TOTALLY too general and TOTALLY non-targeted!
Are you new to the concept of keywords?? No problem! Learn the difference between using one word versus multi-word phrases in my post: Keywords Explained: What’s A Keyword? A Keyword Phrase?
I’ll stop ranting here. Let me show you a general example of what this person’s so-called SEO expert should have done with this tag:
- META name=”keywords” content=”Naturopathic medicine, naturopathic doctor, alternative medicine, [name of practitioner], [name of city & state]“
Though I’ve done zero research into the terms I’ve used in this example, I do believe you get the idea that the keyword phrase terms ARE more targeted and related to a specific niche.
But hold on! I know you’re saying “then why Claudia, if you’re telling us the keyword meta tag no longer matters to the search engines … why are you telling us to optimize it? That doesn’t really make any sense!” I agree, but it is a common held belief amongst many SEO experts that there is still a half-way good reason to optimize the tag, and we do so for our clients. The reason is that Yahoo! and MSN do give a tiny bit of ranking weight to this tag (Google ignores it). So, even though you may read elsewhere to just ignore this tag altogether, my professional advice is why not go ahead and optimize it anyway. We never know if one day, this meta tag may prove to add a bit more weight to organic ranking positions.
When you are optimizing your web page’s keyword meta tag remember this: use approximately 5 targeted terms relating to what your site and that particular web page’s content is about.
This is all you need to do to properly optimize the keyword meta tag. It’s really that simple.
