Worth removing keywords...?

[JohnW-UK]

I was just going over a site I manage and noticed it had a load of meta keywords on it. Probably 10-15 keywords per page... Do you think this is harming the site? Is it worth removing them?

[CMC-SD]

AFAIK, it's not harming the site because the search engines don't even look at the meta-keywords tag. Stuff it, leave it empty, whatever.

[JohnW-UK]

Whats AFAIK? (Sorry not down with the lingo!)

[CMC-SD]

"As far as I know."

[JohnW-UK]

See that's what I thought... It's not the worlds biggest job to remove the keywords but just wondered on pro's and con's of doing it...

[Unity]

There is no SEO benefit in using meta keywords, however if you do use them and are keyword spamming (i.e. using more than 2-3 page specific terms) then you could be penalized.

I always recommend removing the tag completely from the website as it stops the client from spamming the tag at a later date and it reduces the amount of 'useless' code in the source code (Google likes a website that loads quickly!)

[Gordon_Hall]

Added to Davinias thoughts, it also is a quick way for competitors to find out what you are trying to rank for -  it's the first thing I look for on a competitors website!

[Boodreaux]

I read somewhere that the meta keywords did matter for some search engines still like Yahoo but not for Google. Not sure where I read it...maybe I am mistaken though.