The importance of meta keywords
-
Hello,
I am looking into Meta keywords in the attempt to understand their importance. I have been reading about this in several blogs and get the feeling that the general view is that they are no longer very valuable. Some say it is because Google and Bing no longer use them, that in terms of SEO they carry little importance and that they are a great indicator to your competitors about which keywords you believe are important...
My question is this:
Without Meta keywords, how do you deal with misspelt search keywords on your website? For example, if you were looking for a product called 'El Mundo en Espa_ñ_ol' but spelt it using the normal 'n' instead of the Spanish 'ñ', and the keyword 'Espanol' was not included in the Meta keywords, would you still find the product? English speaking people commonly search without the ñ because this is more convenient to them. So how can I make sure that the page is optimised for these type of common misspellings?
Thanks!!!
-
Tom, it might be the same way that Acrobat Reader ranks first for the query [click here] even though those those words don't appear anywhere on the page or in the source code. In my results, I see only two out of the first 10 results that have anything to do with "click here". The rest are there because of anchor text or other factors.
Think of how many web pages you see that talk about "To get Acrobat Reader, Click Here" with the Click Here hyperlinked to the download page. The search engines take that as a clue that the destination is about "Click Here". It's the same way that George Bush's bio page ranked for Miserable Failure, and how many other "Google Bombs" took place (though some are now no longer working). You might take a look at Open Site Explorer and the anchor text on the incoming links to see some off-site factors for the ranking in question.
-
I just want to note that I just caught Google using a meta keyword to rank an article #1 for this keyword, even though the keyword ONLY appeared in the meta keywords tag.
The page was coming up for a search query like "army boots music" even though the page was only about "army boots" and the keyword "music" did not appear anywhere on the page. However, someone had mistakenly put both the meta keywords "army boots" AND "army music" on the page and this is how Google was making this determination.
So I'm perplexed as to how to interpret this, since Google says they "ignore" meta keywords for rankings. Again, this was #1 on the SERP.
-
Thank you all for the help! Have a good week.
-
I just wanted to chime in on the meta tag discussion. For the most part, I incorporate some meta keywords in my landing pages as well - also for organization and interpretation as to what the page details. Google (matt cutts) has specifically stated they don't follow meta tags in ranking - http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html
Additionally, your competitors will get a great idea of the keywords you're targeting if you include that information in your meta data. While it isn't a "Secret" what you're trying to accomplish.. you may inadvertently give them part of your recipe - especially for longtail keywords
-
I just wanted to chime in on the meta tag discussion. For the most part, I incorporate some meta keywords in my landing pages as well - also for organization and interpretation as to what the page details. Google (matt cutts) has specifically stated they don't follow meta tags in ranking - http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html
Additionally, your competitors will get a great idea of the keywords you're targeting if you include that information in your meta data. While it isn't a "Secret" what you're trying to accomplish.. you may inadvertently give them part of your recipe - especially for longtail keywords
-
I still use them too, but not for the benefit of SEO, just for the sake of organization since I've been using them for years. So Amazon may have similar procedure by which they use the meta keywords for their own work habits internally.
-
Hi Pashmina and thank you for your answer. I wanted to make sure of this before I go ahead and delete the Meta keywords from our products. Just one final comment though, I went on Amazon and saw that they are in fact still using them. If you look at the source view of the new Kindle on Amazon.co.uk this is what you see:
>From Amazon.co.uk Kindle page source view:
Why are they continuing to bother with the meta keyword tag if it has no SEO benefit?
Thanks again!
-
Meta keywords are not being used by search engines anymore. They have no value in search or for SEO.
The search algorithms have become sophisticated enough to deal with many variations of words such as plural or misspelt words. So let Google and Bing handle that. You don't need to worry about it so much.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Relevant but not-relevant keywords impact to SEO
Hello, I would like to know if the selection of individual keywords(that are not primary, secondary or tertiary) are important for SEO regardless of the relevancy to the page topic. I am wondering how much of a contribution a non-P1/P2/P3 can make in terms of SEO? For example it is a product page and I have built my content with P1,P2&P3 based only on the product and its properties itself. Do you think that a content gap for the page could be the production process of that product? So even if it is a product and its properties page, I can add 2 sentences about the production, so that I can drive more traffic by including these 2 informative sentences.? EXAMPLE:
Keyword Research | | Siir
So lets' say my topic is "hair types" (P1) and my subtopics are "Straight," "wavy," and "curly"(P2s) which I used as subtitles. But throughout the page, I am planning to add some relevant but not-directly-relevant keywords here and there since they have high metrics and volumes. For example a potential sentence I can add: "innovative hair products these days can offer amazing results for the desired hair types". It is not specifically about "hair types" but I am using the keyword "innovative hair products" (good metrics keyword) which may help for the traffic... Another potential not-so-direct sentence can be: "For all hair types, the hair damages are common: heat damage, chemical damage and mechanical damage". Would adding this extra sentence where I am not specifically talking about "hair types" (my topic) but "hair damages" and damage examples (off-topic high metric keywords) help me to drive traffic to my website? And how much of an impact would it be?0 -
Is it a bad idea to hyphenate keywords?
Hello, my understanding was that Google reads hyphens in keywords as spaces, but if that's accurate how come keywords with hyphens that I research with Keyword Explorer — for instance, hospital-acquired infections — rank lower when I include the hyphen? If the hyphen hurts SEO, do I have to remove them all from the blog or page in question? Removing hyphens means a blog or page will have punctuation errors, which is irritating to an editor, but I don't want to sacrifice the effectiveness of keywords, either. Thanks, in advance, for your response!
Keyword Research | | SallieJ0 -
How granular should I get with Keyword research?
I'm doing KW research for a new business. My understanding from KW research guides: Use tools to create a list of thousands of keywords Analyze difficulty and search volume Reduce your list and do on page optimization for your select KWs My dilemma with this approach is that it seems "keyword based" rather than "intent" or "category" based. e.g. Let's say I have a grocery store. Ignoring SEO, I know that these are my main categories: Produce Meat Dairy Canned Goods Baked Goods In other words, the above categories are the general "intents" and "categories" that I'd really want to rank for. Keyword tool shows that they have high volume and high difficulty. Let's say that after doing keyword research, I discover "Low Fat Chicken Breasts" and "Turkey Sausage" and "Cheap Meat Wholesale" have decent search volume and low competition. I don't quite understand how I'm supposed to utilize these fringe keywords in my on page SEO plan because it doesn't make sense as a human to categorize my site that way. Not sure if this is clear. Basically I'm trying to figure out if I should really be getting this granular on keywords to help guide my store categories or if I should just be picking broader terms.
Keyword Research | | clarasboutiqueusa0 -
Long tail keyword research
Is there any way for me to figure out long tail key words related to keyword such as "IT solutions"? This is a competitive term. How do I figure out related keywords with high search volume and less competition?
Keyword Research | | zsyed0 -
How to choose a Keyword
I searched around for this answer first but got information overload. I write a photography blog and tonight I will put up a post of photography from around Jiyugaoka Train Station. I will probably call the post Around Jiyugaoka Station or Around Jiyugaoka or something like that. I like in Jiyugaoka (a part of Tokyo) so I have other posts that I have keyworded for Jiyugaoka. What is the best way to determine what is the best derivative of 'Jiyugaoka Station' to choose for the best traffic? I assume I could enter them in to manually into the Keyword Analysis but is there is easier way that would give recommendations?
Keyword Research | | ShootTokyo0 -
Meta description
meta description for example my keyword is cscs for my website now how many time i need to use cscs in meta description
Keyword Research | | constructionhelpline0 -
Google search not grouping keywords properly
When is a 'Repair' not a 'Repair'...? When it's a "Service" (... cue rapturous applause and laughter!) We run an air conditioning website and we have recently noticed that Google is assuming the keyword "Repair" also means "Service". For example if you type in (in the UK) "Air Conditioner Repair" the first page of Google it puts the word "Service" in bold. E.g: 1. Check this before calling for air conditioner service - YouTube 2. Halfords Autocentres| Air Conditioning Service for all car makes and 3. Service Your Air Conditioner for Summer Comfort « Sustainable Now... why do I find this annoying. I had a amicable dispute with a colleague last year before all of this happened. I noticed that our Google Adwords campaign was showing a high bounce rate for our /air_conditioning_service page. He explained to me that if someone wanted and 'air conditioning service' it was because they wanted their air conditioning fixed / cleaned etc. My argument was that a fair few of the people bouncing off were actually looking for a company to provide a service (of air conditioning) that they were looking for. We split the page in half (half linking through to a repair page and the other half to a page about the service that we offer) and ran a test against the original. I was only expecting a small percentage of people to click on the new option we had added to the page, however, the difference was far greater than ever expected. It was a 60/40% split in favour of the new option not people wanting their aircon repaired/serviced! So in conclusion... very annoyingly, Google is recognising my service page rather than my far more relevant repair page, and there seems to be nothing I can do about it (other than make my service page more relevant) Rant over... but has anyone else experienced anything similar? Is there anything you can do about it?
Keyword Research | | trickshotric0 -
Keyword and Keyphrases
I'm looking to optimise my website for some keywords and keyphrases I'm getting a bit confused on how different pages might compete (or help) each other. As we are an automotive dealer I was thinking about building the hompage around 4 keywords (one for each franchise we represent e.g 'Ford'). These show high local monthly searches and medium competition for just the manufacturer name on its own. Then if someone drills down into a franchise homepage (linked from our homepage e.g. www.ourwebsite.com/ford) I was thinking to optimise the page around e.g. 'Ford Dealer' (which has medium local monthly searches and high competition). Then if someone drills down into a particular model I optimise around that and so on. Question is will I be playing the franchise homepage vs the group homepage (Ford vs Ford Dealer) as I have read here on Keyword Cannibalization? Or will it work together? Alternative I guess is not to focus around a franchise on the group homepage and then only focus on the franchise from the franchise homepage onwards but I feel I would be missing a trick? As a new kid on the block help will be most appreciated.
Keyword Research | | design_man0