Do "search keywords" matter?

[WNL]

I've been getting conflicting accounts about this. We aways fill out the Title Tag, Meta Description and Product Tags(<- for internal purposes) but we are concerned about how important the "search keywords" are. We use bigcommerce and they describe their value as this: "the search keywords are optional, but if entered will be used for two things. First, they will be used along with the product name to create meta tags for search engine (I know meta keywords are not important, so is this what they mean?). Second, they will be used to assist people when searching your products. (Also internal, right?)." For all intents and purposes I think it is NOT super important but I wanted to make sure before I let them take a back burner.

Thank you for your help in advance!

[WNL]

Thank you for your response! There is a place for these keywords and then a place meta keywords so I would assume they are not the same thing. There's my dilemma.

I'm not sure of the difference between search keywords and meta keywords.

But it sounds like they aren't important either way.

[Shuffled]

As previously said don't waste your time and efforts the only folk it helps is your competitor, as you would put your most valuable keyword/phrases at the beginning of that tag ,there you go your competitor now knows what your aiming for.

I physically tried a with and without the keyword tag and I have to admit my webpage without keywords ranked just as well if not slightly better for the same keyword.

If you are using a CMS, surely there would be a tag field that can be utilized better than the keyword field.

[Chris.Menke]

Let them take a back burner. You may never need to get around to them but most platforms provide a field for them because a lot of people still believe they're an important part of SEO.

[Francisco_Meza]

I agree with John.

I never use the Keyword tag for anything. nobody is going to look at that unless they are a marketer.

[Johnny4B]

Assuming we are talking about the meta tag Keywords

They are not used by Search Engines, have not been used since pre 2009.

We never ever use them, as they hold no benefit and well we would be only telling competitors what we we where trying to rank for.

Saying that, if you use them for your CMS, they wont harm your site performance.