Thread: Are Meta keywords in meta tags (really) Necessary?

Hi, I have 2 questions regarding meta keywords.

I was very confused by what I read on a web site about meta keywords.

This website gave for advice to never use meta keywords in meta tags. I could not find any reason why, though, on their site. I have learned how important meta keywords are for web ranking, etc...Even Bethers, in her SEO Basics encourages to use them. SO why will this website say not use meta keywords? Oh, now that i remember, they say we should place keywords inside the title tags + body contents of pages. I can surely understand that. But why dismiss meta keywords in the meta tag altogether???

Question 2: their site offers a way to check meta keywords and meta description from your competitors...I browsed the internet for the top 20 competitors in my field (Online French class) and i was surprised to see that 2 among them did not even have a single meta keyword/ or description. And yet, when i googled them, they appear in the very first pages...Any idea why? are meta keywords optional or something? Thanks for your insight!

P.S. the site i was referring to, where they capture other competitors' site's keywords, is http://www.apogee-web-consulting.com...yword_tool.php. To the left of the page, they provide 6 tips about metakeywords, and advise not to use them inside meta tags.

Herman

Most of the big SE no longer use the keyword tag, altho a number of the smaller ones do. You can continue to use them, long as you dont spam them. Ive done it both ways.

The reason the SE dont give any or as much weight is because of the spamming and the improper use of them.

Karen

If I can extend on Karen's advice, I myself have redesigned all of my own sites and a few of my clients lately and whilst doing so have either removed or extremley cut down to one or two keywords in my meta data. I have seen a more than vast improvement since doing so. It's more now on what content is on your site rather than 'behind' it.

Still treat Page titles and page descriptions though with extreme importance.

Most important is not putting in excessive keywords or words not on the page itself.

The meta keywords were used in the past (several years ago) by se's - as they believed people were being honest. Then people learned how to spam - and they now pretty much ignore them - except they will notice now if they are misused and/or spammed - and possibly lower the website because of doing it.l

So whats the best way to go about it, just have 2 meta tag words and a brief page description (well its limited to 25 words so its going to be brief any way) and just put alot of thought into naming pages.
and an eg. of one of mine is-
wargames-games-workshop-lordoftherings-lord-of-the-rings-lotr

the full address-
http://www.acewargames.com/wargames-...ings-lotr.html

for a page selling Games Workshop - Lord of the Rings merchandise.
is that the way to do it. because ive noticed that google and yahoo both ignore the meta tag key words but look for actule words that are typed on the site ie. words in a text box

You appear to have the wrong end of the stick. That is a URL, not a meta tag keyword or page description. Your URL should be named something memorable such as www.acewargames.com/lordoftherings.html or something similar.

The title, keywords and page description are all located by right-clicking anywhere on a blank space on your page in BV and choosing page properties.

Actually, meta keywords do have a use for Google contrary to current thinking: If your page description includes your meta keyword, Google will use your page description in its SERP snippet, as opposed to displaying whatever it wants to.

This gives you more control over your SERPs display and could possibly result in more traffic.

AJ,

They do sometimes, and sometimes not. They generally do keep the description, you are correct, but its not always displayed in the results. Google displays whichever is more relevant, your description, or what is found on your site parsed by what was typed in the search bar.

My rule of thumb for newbies is this. Use the keyword tag to GUIDE you for the page, use two to five KEYWORD PHRASES that best describe your site and what its purpose is for the home page, and then make sure thats what you are optimizing the home page for. Other pages then should follow suit with the keyword phrasing that best suits that PAGE, and optimize it accordingly.

Dean,

You should NOT string out your page names in that manner. That can be seen as spam. The shorter and more relevant a page name is, the easier to use for the customer. The way you are doing it, is pure spam for the SE. Now, those things can be in your title, or what appears on the browser bar, or even made into an h1 tag, but its inappropriate for page names

Karen

AJ, that goes against what Google themselves say - and I've always had my pages top keyword phrase in my meta descriptions - and it has not always meant that Google displays that description. Usually they do - but they can display anything they want to. And if you are in the ODP - chances are they'll display from that.

Dean, have you read the ebook in my signature yet?

Yea Bethers i have excellent for noobs like me but im still trying to digest the info i dont understand alot of it.

the reason i put all those lord of the rings in the link is because every one writes it differently, a normal page looks like -
http://www.acewargames.com/wargames-...hammer40k.html
a page linking to warhammer 40k stock.
Now is this still spam or what i have no idea, probably. This stuff is hard to work out.
Im still sifting through old posts and stuff to get SEO info your ebook was the first thing i read bethers and it has helped alot with terms and what does what.
But with SE its the contridictions on things thats confusing me just in this thread theres 3 different opinoins on what SE do and dont. But hey im happy to try them all. As id like to get up in the SE rankings a bit, but at the moment it looks unlikely.

Forgot to add
should i change all my pages names to be very spercific or what like
say with the above eg. www.acewargames.com/warhammer40k
and just cut out ' wargames-games-workshop '

if so thats going to be a massive job fixxing all the links in all the pages, because of how they are made. But if google is going to penelise me for having pages full of spam well i really DONT want that. So ill have to do it.

The page name isn't spam. It's long - and might be unwieldly for users - but it's not spam.

What i was thinking for my home pages, page properties was-
TITLE- Ace Wargames

Keywords- Games Workshop, warhammer fantasy, warhammer 40k, lord of the rings, Australia (im not sure if this counts as spam but all those things are what i sell and Australia is were i sell them)

Description- Ace wargames for all your Warhammer40k, Warhammer fantasy and Lord of the rings battle games merchandise.

is this ok, is this what i should be doing.
As im completly confused.

Not sure the 'Australia' is going to do anything for you to be honest.. why didn't you purchase an Australian domain? The search engines then know to index you as an Australian site.

I think your page description could be a few more words longer too.

Also, don't forget, whatever words you put in your keywords meta data, MUST also be on the page you are keywording.

And your meta has to be different for each page.

What you have will work, if as Ramsey says, those keywords are used on the page.

Australia- if you are looking for that to be a keyword, should be used on the page, and possibly in the title, but doesn't need to be listed in the meta keywords. But it won't hurt. And you aren't spamming.

So meta tags are - keywords + description

and both of these have to be different for each page
so for my Warhammer 40k link page id have -
title: Ace Wargames - Warhammer 40k

Keywords: Game Workshop, Warhammer 40k (but leave out all the individual 40k armies like 'Space marines' & 'Eldar' and save them for each of there seperate pages)

Description: Ace wargames, for all your Warhammer 40k merchandise

Then for a Army page like 'Space Marines' have
Title: Ace Wargames - Space Marines

Keywords: Warhammer 40k, Space marines,

Discription: Ace Wargames, for all your Space Marine minitures


hows that sound,
http://www.acewargames.com/wargames-...hammer40k.html
thats the page at the moment.

Yes Dean, exactly right, and for the Space Marine url you may have something like www.acewargames.com/spacemarines.html

Out of all of these the page title is by far the most important.

For the page title, I would put the page name FIRST - then the site name. The top keyword for the page is what it is about - not the name of the site.

And there are lots of other possible meta tags, but these are where you start and you're getting the hang of it.