Should I delete Meta Keywords from a website?
-
Hi Guys,
I've been reading various posts on the Q&A section here at Moz about Meta keywords.
I understand that meta keywords are not relevant with Google and that Bing signals this as spam.
I'm optimising existing websites which already have meta keywords in the html coding.
My question is:
If I delete ALL meta keyword coding will this have any negative impact whatsoever?
Thanks Mozers
Jason
-
They have no shame when it comes to link spam LOL. You should know this by now. This person seems no different then the people that email blast cialis discounts.
-
What about comment spam on seven-year-old posts? The links are all nofollow, FYI.
-
HI all,
I was about to embark on a meta keyword application exercise but now will refrain from it. All this was very informative, I was wondering whether to add them as not.
I agree it will always be content over keyword any day, hands down.
Regards,
Kamran
-
-
Thanks Dean,
I try to apply the same individual responses on Social Media. People take the time to respond individually and that warrants a personalised response.
All too often this is a failing of businesses on Social Media.
Jason
-
Congratulations on your new position Jason.
Also nice to see that you have responded to everyone who made a comment.
-
Hi Dean,
Think content rather than keywords - spot on!
As I've only been in my job for 6 weeks, my fear is if I delete them it may have a negative impact on our search engine results.
So far deleting them is more likely than not.
I'll keep you informed of any impact this may have.
Thanks
Jason
-
Hi David,
So far I'm in favour of deleting them, but with your response I'm in a bit of a dilemma.
I agree with your premise that you should optimise for people and not search engines, also the point about not knowing how people reach your site.
The meta keywords is the last of my tasks as meta tags, title tags and other on page text has been fully optimised. However I am finding a direct correlation between meta keywords and search engine rankings. Our sites feature in the top 5 searches on Google but 30-40 on Yahoo and Bing. So after optimising all other areas of the websites, meta keywords seem to be the cause of this. So the sink is leaking somewhere.
I really appreciate your detailed response and will take some time ponder over my options.
Thanks
Jason
-
Hi Chris,
Thanks for your reply. With your advice and the majority of responses to this post it seems like deleting them might be my best option.
If I delete them and it has a negative effect I'll keep you all informed!
Thanks
Jason
-
Thanks for clarifying this Kevin.
Our websites ranks high (top 5) on Google but ranks around 30-40 on Yahoo and Bing so there does seem to be a direct correlation.
I think the very nature of meta keywords is stuffing, so I'm swaying on the side of deleting them altogether.
Thanks for your response.
Jason
-
Thanks Evan
-
Hi Mark,
I too analyse competitors websites in the same way, it helps me with SEO and copywriting.
This is one of the main reasons I want to delete them from our sites.
Thanks for your feedback.
Jason
-
Thanks Benjamin,
There certainly seems to be harm in leaving them when considering Bing. I've noticed that our websites all ranks within the top 5 searches on Google but Bing and Yahoo we don't fair so well.
I am hesitant to delete them as you rightfully point out, they may be important in the future.
Cheers
Jason
-
Thanks for your response Ruben.
There's a few differing opinions on this thread so I'll take your advice and balance my options. Unfortunately the link you kindly provided cannot be found
Thanks
Jason
-
I agree with Mark on this one. As long as they are not stuffed, it may not be that big of a deal, but I don't include them.
-
I also would suggest that you delete them as no search engine use them and as already suggested it gives your competitors a list of keywords that you are trying to optimise for.
Think content rather than a list of keywords
-
I am in favor of keeping them. One rule we live for is "Not optimizing only for Google, yahoo or any one specific platform"
If the keywords are direct and well chosen, they will not hurt you. If not, its more than likely there are some other areas of your site that could use improvements as well. You never know how people will be getting to your site, or by what means they will get there. Removing something that is well structured, even if it's only used by a select few platforms is not a good idea IMHO.
If they are stuffed, then yes, it would be a good idea to revise them, but not completely remove them. Is the keywords tag the most important factor? No, not by any means. i would take a hard look at your description and page titles before I would suggest worrying about keywords.
A quote someone once told me about SEO "If my sink is leaking, I fix the leak. I don't throw away the whole sink, or go buy a new one, unless the old one cannot be repaired."
-
The short answer is no - it will have no negative impact.
-
No problem deleting them. Google and Yahoo does not use it as a ranking factor. Also, if stuffed could impact your rankings on Bing who uses as a spam signal.
-
When I'm doing keyword research, one of the first things I do is go on competitor websites and see if they have the meta keyword tag. If they do, then it instantly gives me access to all the keywords that they're targeting and allows me to work on beating them. Deleting your meta keyword tag prevents your competitors from doing this to you.
-
I would keep them, i even still use them with sites I'm building now because even though one search engine says they don't use them maybe another will and who knows if and when they will be important again. In my opinion no harm no foul. I leave mine.
-
Hi Jason,
This thread is from a couple of years ago, but it still holds true: http://moz.com/community/q/meta-keywords-should-we-use-them-or-nothttp://moz.com/community/q/meta-keywords-should-we-use-them-or-not
Before you do anything, wait for a second, third, and, maybe even, fourth opinion, but deleting all your meta keywords should not change your rankings in google at all...and it might even help your rankings in Bing...but it certainly won't hurt you.
- Ruben
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
-
Help finding website content scraping
Hi, I need a tool to help me review sites that are plagiarising / directly copying content from my site. But tools that I'm aware, such as Copyscape, appear to work with individual URLs and not a root domain. That's great if you have a particular post or page you want to check. But in this case, some sites are scraping 1000s of product pages. So I need to submit the root domain rather than an individual URL. In some cases, other sites are being listed in SERPs above or even instead of our site for product search terms. But so far I have stumbled across this, rather than proactively researched offending sites. So I want to insert my root domain & then for the tool to review all my internal site pages before providing information on other domains where an individual page has a certain amount of duplicated copy. Working in the same way as Moz crawls the site for internal duplicate pages - I need a list of duplicate content by domain & URL, externally that I can then contact the offending sites to request they remove the content and send to Google as evidence, if they don't. Any help would be gratefully appreciated. Terry
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MFCommunications0 -
Hacked Websites (Doorways) Ranking First Page of Google
Hello Moz community! I could really use your help with some suggestions here with some recent changes I've noticed in the Google serps for terms I've been currently working on. Currently one of the projects I am working on is for an online pharmacy and noticed that the SERPs are being now taken up by hacked websites which look like doorways to 301 redirect to an online pharmacy the hacker wants the traffic to go to. Seems like they may be wordpress sites that are hacked and have unrelated content on their websites compared to online pharmacies. We've submitted these issues as spam to Google and within chrome as well but haven't heard back. When searching terms like "Canadian Pharmacy Viagra" and other similar terms we see this issue. Any other recommendations on how we can fix this issue? Thanks for your time and attached is a screenshot of the results we are seeing for one of our searches. 1Orus
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | monarkg0 -
Dodgy backlinks pointing to my website - someone trying to ruin my SEO rankings?
I just saw in 'Just discovered' section of MOZ that 2 new backlinks have appeared back to my website - www.isacleanse.com.au from spammy websites which look like they might be associated with inappropriate content. 1. http://laweba.net/opinion-y-tecnologia/css-naked-day/comment-page-53/ peepshow says: (peepshow links off to my site)07/17/2016 at 8:55 pm2. http://omfglol.org/archives/9/comment-page-196 voyeur says: (voyeur linking off to my site)
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | IsaCleanse
July 17, 2016 at 7:58 pm Any ideas if this is someone trying to send me negative SEO and best way to deal with it?0 -
Suggest me a best plan for linking building chart for small static website.
Hi Everyone, Can any one suggest me a clear idea for off page link building chart i.e) Our page is a 24 page website we like to plan for off page activity like bookmarking, classifieds, directory bla bla bla. So how many links we are supposed to post and in how much day time gap example: 15 Links in bookmarking, 10 links in classified, weekly one article submission, after one week the same cycle goes on.....
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | dineshmap0 -
Why do websites use different URLS for mobile and desktop
Although Google and Bing have recommended that the same URL be used for serving desktop and mobile websites, portals like airbnb are using different URLS to serve mobile and web users. Does anyone know why this is being done even though it is not GOOD for SEO?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | razasaeed0 -
What happens when content on your website (and blog) is an exact match to multiple sites?
In general, I understand that having duplicate content on your website is a bad thing. But I see a lot of small businesses (specifically dentists in this example) who hire the same company to provide content to their site. They end up with the EXACT same content as other dentists. Here is a good example: http://www.hodnettortho.com/blog/2013/02/valentine’s-day-and-your-teeth-2/ http://www.braces2000.com/blog/2013/02/valentine’s-day-and-your-teeth-2/ http://www.gentledentalak.com/blog/2013/02/valentine’s-day-and-your-teeth/ If you google the title of that blog article you find tons of the same article all over the place. So, overall, doesn't this make the content on these blogs irrelevant? Does this hurt the SEO on these sites at all? What is the value of having completely unique content on your site/blog vs having duplicate content like this?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MorganPorter0 -
How many times should one submit the same article to various websites? 1 time? 10 times? What is okay to do with the most recent Panda update?'
For link-building purposes, seemingly it was okay to post the same article to multiple sites for links in the past. However, after the most recent Panda update our thought is that this may not be a good practice. So the question is, how many times is okay to submit an article for link building purposes. Should you always only submit to one site? Is it okay to do more than once? What is the right way to submit for link-building in Google's eyes? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Robertnweil10