Do Search Engines use Meta Keywords?

, Do Search Engines use Meta Keywords? It's been 9 years since we learned that the keyword meta tag would no longer be used as a ranking signal. That being said, there is still a lot of disagreement on whether to use this meta tag or not.

Here's my opinion … if you're going to use the tag don't just stuff it full of keywords like it's 2005. If you're going to use it, use “related keywords to the phrase for which you're optimizing”. When you do a search for the keyword for which you'd like to optimize your page, you'll see that Google will bold a lot of the results. These are your “related keywords” Here's an example. Say I want to optimize a page for “apartments in city st” Google will typically bold the phrases “city apartment”, “apartments in city”, “apartment in city st”. These are the phrases I put in the keyword meta tag on my pages.

When your page is compared to your competition, your keyword usage is compared to theirs and if you are using more keyword phrases than your competition you're in danger of over optimizing and will be rewarded with a lower position in the SERPs as a reward. Conversely, it's been my experience that keeping my usage “just above” the competion, I will be rewarded with a higher position.

As I said, there is still a lot of controversy regarding the use of this tag. Here are some recent articles with opinions that both agree and disagree with mine.