![\"Meta](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Meta-Keywords-illustration-with-the-meta-name-and-content-in-the-background-with-a-man-on-a-laptop-with-a-coffee.-scaled.png\")
<\/p>\nAt the advent of the internet, the purpose of meta keywords was to label your webpage with its key points so when someone searched for a topic that you wrote about, they\u2019d find your page.\u00a0The meta keyword used to be really important to this process but isn\u2019t any longer.<\/p>\n
Somehow, the topic seems to continually pop up in SEO circles: should we use meta keywords or not? The resounding response is no, get those out of here! There are better uses of your time that yield better return on investment (ROI).<\/p>\n
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Meta means \u201cbeyond.\u201d So, anything meta on your web page is beyond what displays on the page.
\nVisitors can\u2019t see anything labeled \u201cmeta\u201d in your code, with the exceptions of the meta title tag and meta description tag, which are usually displayed on search engine results pages (SERPs). But that doesn\u2019t mean metadata isn\u2019t important; there\u2019s actually a ton of metadata in your code, which instructs the web browser how to display your data. Meta keywords are the fossils of SEO, in a way.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re confused about where to find meta tags<\/a>, they show up on the backend of your webpage, a.k.a the source code that provides structure to your site. You\u2019d have to be in your content management system or webpage dashboard as an admin to edit it.<\/p>\n The meta keywords code is in the header section of your website. It will have this format: <meta name=”keywords” content=”Keyword1, Keyword2, Keyword3″> and will show up between these two elements: \u201c<head> <head\/>\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There will be other \u201ctags\u201d in this section<\/a> that are labeled \u201cmeta.\u201d These ones are important for digital marketing, so don\u2019t delete them. The title tag and meta description tag show up as snippets on the search results page:<\/p>\n Meta keywords are different from the keywords that you use in your page content for things like blogs, landing pages, etc.<\/strong><\/p>\n In a way, the meta keyword was the precursor to keywords. But, the usefulness of the meta keyword has long since expired, and in the world of SEO today, they are all but dead.<\/p>\n To understand why meta keywords are so unnecessary, you have to know how major search engines interact with your site.<\/p>\n You have a web page because you want to share something with the world. So, you want the right people to find it. Organic traffic is one pathway to your site. When someone finds you on a search engine, like Google, Bing, Ask, etc., this is organic traffic.<\/p>\n Search engines organize the information on the internet so they can present it back to us. They use robots to \u201ccrawl\u201d your web page, read content on the front and back end of your site, and then use this for different reasons including:<\/p>\n Early search engines used the meta keyword element for indexing, retrieval, and ranking. However, in the late 1990s, it became clear that the meta keywords function was easy to misuse.<\/p>\n One guess why?<\/p>\n If you guessed keyword stuffing<\/a>, you got it. Irrelevant or misleading keywords were purposefully added into these tags, deeming them obsolete over time.<\/p>\n Search engines still index them but as a ranking factor, the meta keyword was dropped<\/a>:<\/p>\n The guidelines of Naver, Yandex, and Baidu suggest they may still use meta keywords. But in what capacity?<\/p>\n Remember, there are over 200 ranking factors.<\/p>\n Even if meta keywords are still used by some in ranking, they hold no power<\/strong>. The major search engines themselves have said they have low relevance. In other words, they matter as much as the color of an athlete\u2019s uniform in awarding Olympic medals.<\/p>\n Now that you understand search engines, you can grasp why they ignore the meta keyword.<\/p>\n The thing is, if you’re browsing the web, we can’t blame you for getting a little confused. I mean, when I read the articles written about it, a lot of them tell you no, you shouldn\u2019t and then seemingly also tell you yes. What is that?<\/p>\n That is the type of bad mixed messaging you shouldn\u2019t tolerate anywhere (take notes for your dating life, if you need). You deserve a straight answer and that answer is no. Google came out in 1998, right after support for meta keywords fell out of favor. Google never supported the meta keyword<\/a> as an indicator of retrieval or rank. It still indexes your meta keywords if you use them, but that\u2019s where its involvement stops. Essentially, it just stores them and never looks at them again.<\/p>\n In mid-2024, Google had a leak of their search algorithm and ranking factors. Meta Keywords is not one of these ranking factors.<\/p>\n Yoast admitted it kept a meta keyword function on its site just to keep consumers happy. This lasted for years. It removed it completely in 2018<\/a>.<\/p>\n P.S The search engines killed the meta keyword because of manipulative misuse. Now, it may still be used as an indicator \u2013 but an indicator that your site is spammy.<\/a><\/p>\n Your competitors can see or scrape your meta keywords. Then, they use this to compete directly against your SEO strategy<\/a>.<\/p>\n And their tone is so exasperated, it gave me a good laugh. If nothing else convinces you, this should:<\/p>\n Bing’s Former Head of Evangelism Christi Olson is so definitive, it’s almost comical. She doesn\u2019t just say it, she screams it for the people in the back:<\/p>\n \u201cThe meta keyword tag is dead in terms of SEO value for @BingWMC. We exclude it and ignore it.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Matt Cutts of Google left this message on his own web page<\/a> as if to say: ‘Yeah guys, don’t know why you can’t let this go. Now I have to talk about it in my downtime!’<\/p>\n Since the meta keywords feature is defunct, you should consider removing it.<\/p>\n The meta keywords may all be pulling from the same spot and be easily fixable with one line of code. If you notice this is the case with your site, here\u2019s how to fix it.<\/a><\/p>\nMeta tags in your header<\/h3>\n
![\"Meta](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Meta-Keywords.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Keyword](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Keyword-research-tool-for-SEO-and-PPC.png\")
<\/p>\nAre meta keywords the same as keywords?<\/h2>\n
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\n \n \n \n Try Similarweb for free<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\nDoes Google use meta keywords?<\/h2>\n
What are search engines doing with your site?<\/h3>\n
This is what Google does with your web page<\/h3>\n
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Which search engines use meta keywords?<\/h2>\n
![\"Meta](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Meta-Keywords-ranking-factor-scaled.png\")
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Why is this conversation still lingering?<\/h3>\n
Should you use meta keywords: definitely no!<\/h2>\n
![\"Should](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Should-you-use-meta-keywords-or-no-scaled.png\")
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\nHere are some clues that this feature is definitively defunct:<\/p>\n1. Google never used meta keywords, to begin with.<\/h3>\n
2. Yoast, the major SEO plugin for WordPress, wanted to remove them years before it finally did.<\/h3>\n
\nSome people confused Yoast’s focus keyword with meta keyword. They are not the same thing.<\/p>\n3. Bing indicated meta keywords are more useful to mark spam, which is a negative rank signal.<\/h3>\n
4. Meta keywords can be useful for your competitors to steal your hard work.<\/h3>\n
5. Decision-makers at Bing and Google restated this message in their personal time.<\/h3>\n
How to remove meta keywords<\/h2>\n