Meta Keywords: Why You Should Not Use Them

What are — or were — meta keywords?

Meta keywords appeared in 1995, when people used search engines such as AltaVista and Infoseek. Website owners could add a meta element listing the page's main keywords. It looked like this:

<meta name="keywords" content="seo, search engine, optimization, ranking">

Like other metadata, the element was invisible to visitors but could be read by search engines and used in their assessment of a page.

In effect, it let website owners tell a search engine how they wanted their site interpreted. That simplicity invited abuse as the web became more commercial. Many sites filled the attribute with spam, and search engines began disregarding it.

The end of meta keywords

An important milestone came in September 2009, when Google publicly explained its position.

‘Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking.’

Watch the video by Matt Cutts:

What about Yahoo and Bing?

At SMX East in October 2009, Yahoo said it no longer used meta keywords. That proved not to mean that the words were never indexed, but they did not help improve a page's ranking.

In 2014, Bing also explained:

‘The meta keywords tag is effectively dead for SEO. Contextual advertising systems or bots may still use it to obtain signals from pages, but its role as a factor supporting search rankings belongs to the past.’

Bing also indicated that misuse could be counterproductive if the contents were interpreted as a spam signal.

Do not spend time compiling meta keyword lists. Put those five minutes into improving your content instead. Research keywords for your actual content: keyword research remains useful even though the meta keywords element is obsolete for this purpose.

But I still want meta keywords!

You do not need them. Filling the element provides no useful substitute for content work and can create unnecessary spam-like signals. Focus instead on keeping your content aligned with relevant standards and updates.