Keywords
-
Hi All,
If I had a site about a cartoon character (for example).
When I add keywords to the 'keywords' meta tag, would I be best to put specific phrases such as
Cartoon Character, Cartoon Character on TV, Cartoon Character on Television
or would the following have the same effect:
Cartoon Character, Tv, Movie, Television
I was wondering if having the above instance might be less effective as the search engines might read TV, Movie, Television as less relevant to Cartoon Character.
Hope that makes sense!
-
Hi Wayne,
Are you still looking for more information, or did the responses so far meet your needs? Let us know if you'd like more input, or mark this thread as answered. Thanks!
-
Yahoo use to be the only ones who really took this into account, but since last year when Bing started running the technical side of their engine as well this pretty much become insignificant across the board. Bing tries to be more and more like Google every day so I believe that taking time to use the tag (even though it may only take a measly minute or so) after you know the target keywords for your piece of content I still think the disadvantage of also showing your competitors what terms you are trying to rank for outweighs the hypothetical pro of thinking people still take this into account.
-
Hi,
Infact SEOmoz's Campaign Manager provides you with a critique of your web pages. If they use the meta keywords tags, it recommends that you take them out.
Regards,
Chris
-
If you do a search on SEOMoz for meta keywords you'll find that most SEOs don't put any time at all into meta keywords. In fact, there have been several posts where some SEOs have suggested going back in and removing meta keywords in order to clean up their code.
I don't use them at all. I do use a meta description though in case my page gets shared on facebook as FB uses the meta description.
-
I was aware that it did not count for much these days but it appears to me that 'every little counts' in terms of ranking etc. So its got to help in someway surely?
-
I could be wrong here but I don't really agree with Theo as (and you can test for yourself) that Bing and Yahoo will index you and will look at your meta keywords. Google will NOT and will ignore your keywords as Matt Cutts has indicated, having said that I will still put moderate keywords based on my overall site and page theme.
I have done a simple test by adding a misspelled keyword and within a week I did really well on both Yahoo and Bing and when I removed the keyword my rank has disappeared.
Now to answer your question in full I would put the following:
Cartoon Character, Cartoon Character on TV, Television Cartoon Character etc
Try not to put Cartoon Character at the beginning of the keyword put should have a variation.
-
The keywords meta tag is not being used by any of the major engines as a ranking signal.
Investing time into that is at first a waste of time, and secondly you are actually providing your competitors with valuable information about the keywords you're targeting. More on the subject in one of my presentations and on my blog.
[edit]
View the: official statement by Matt Cutts on this subject.
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
-
Buying Domains with Keywords but no PA, no content
MOZ Community, I am trying to gauge both the potential upside and downside of buying a few (relatively long) URLs that encompass some new keywords that are surfacing in our industry and creating permanent redirects to our branded website. [This wasn't my idea!] These URLs haven't previously had any content or owners so their domain authority is low. Will Google still ding us for this behavior? I hope not but I worry that there might be some penalty for having a bunch of redirects pointing at our site. I have read that google will penalize you for buying content-rich sites with high DA and redirecting those URLs to your site but I am unclear about this other approach. It seems like a fairly mundane (and fruitless) play. I tried to explain that we won't reap any SEO rewards for owning these URLS (if there is no content) but that wasn't really heard. Thanks for any resources or information you can share! I would appreciate any resources.
Technical SEO | | ColleenHeadLight0 -
How would you research on what keywords to rank?
Do you guys mind sharing your steps on what you do on your research? Semrush does not have my countries google so Sadly i have to skip that. I been using open site explore to check out on my competitors to see what they are ranking. Any more suggestions?
Technical SEO | | andrewwatson921 -
Target Keywords not being picked up by Moz On-Page Grader
Thanks in advance for any help, It seems our target keyword "digital marketing agency" is not being picked up by yoast or the on-page grader as having the keyword in our home page content. Exact Keyword Used in Document Text at Least Once comes back as a zero. When we run our website through Google Webmasters fetch tool the keyword shows up fine in the content. Any ideas how we can fix this?
Technical SEO | | DerekDenholm0 -
Parked former company's url on top of my existing url and that URL is showing in SERPs for my top keywords
I have the URL from my former company parked on top of my existing URL. My top keywords are showing up with the old URL attached to the metadsecription of my existing URL. It was supposed to be 301 redirected instead of parked but my web developer insists this was the right way to do it and it will work itself out after google indexes the old URL out of existence. Are there any other options?
Technical SEO | | Joelabarre0 -
Duplicating Keywords in Page Title
Hello All, I am currently trying to establish the TITLE tag of my homepage. I am trying to target 2 terms plus my company name. For example, purposes, the two keywords are: Widget Program Widget Software My company Name is: Widget Direct I originally had the title as: Widget Program | Software | Widget Direct My thought was that I didn't want to repeat the word "Widget" too many times. However, the SEOmoz on-page report card keeps telling me I should have the exact keyword in my title tag. In that case it would make the title: Widget Program | Widget Software | Widget Direct Do you think that is better so that I have each keyword in the title or will that result in a penalty because it looks like I'm stuffing the title with the keyword 'widget'? Any insight is greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Robert-B0 -
Trying to get on Google page one for keyword "criminal defense attorney san diego". What can I do?
I'm trying to help a friend who is an attorney get on page one for the keyword "criminal defense attorney san diego." So far I've changed his title and description tags since they weren't optimized before. (SERP shows old title tag, however I submitted a XML sitemap through Webmaster tools to get the new title tags updated.) He also had a few duplicate pages, but I took care of that with some 301 redirects. I also added a h1 tag, alt image tag, and more content. I also spent a few hours building links for him. He currently has a page authority of 52 and domain authority of 44 with a decent amount of links pointing to his site. I'm wondering why he's stuck on page 4, when his competitors that have less impressive numbers seem to show up on page 1. I did look at his link profile using OSE and I'm worried that his old SEO guy got him spam links. His website is www.nasserilegal.com, however the page I was focusing on was www.nasserilegal.com/criminal.html Any advice would be great.
Technical SEO | | micasalucasa0 -
What keywords should i be using to promote my site
Hi i am looking to promote my home page which is a lifestyle magazine www.in2town.co.uk and i am not sure what keywords i should be using to promote it. I am doing ok for the keyword lifestyle magazine but i am struggling on what other keywords i should be using to get people to the home page of the magazine. The magazine is nearly finished and we still have a couple of finishing touches to do but the basics of the magazine is as follows holiday and travel news, soap gossip, celebrity gossip, product reviews, lingerie brands, gastric band hypnotherapy, health, fashion and beauty and holiday reviews. I want the home page to be the main page where everyone visits but i am not sure what i should be doing to accomplish this. Any ideas would be of a great help
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
If I point a domain name to a new faster server, will I lose some keyword ranking?
I'm redesigning a client's site, breaking up content into separate pages and moving the site to a managed server keeping the same domain name. Will I lose any link juice or keyword ranking for site even if I 301 redirect the old pages to the new titled pages?
Technical SEO | | sirmarkthomas0