Meta Keywords

[wparlaman]

Hello Everyone-

Quick question about meta keywords. Most SEO's agree that meta keywords are no longer used as a ranking factor in Google.

My question is, if a client comes to me and they already have a bunch of meta keywords on their site what would the smart strategy be?

1. Remove all the meta keyword data from the clients site

2. Scale the meta keywords back by only leaving the top keywords in the code?

3. Do nothing

Thanks for all your time!

Regards,

Bill Parlaman

[EGOL]

I would be inclined to do #3.  Nothing.

That option requires no work and you will not need to worry about client seeing that they are removed and coming to you with concerns.

If you are inclined to do #1 then I would mention it to client before they are removed.  Possible reasons to remove might be to reduce the amount of code on the page and some people think that meta keywords can be used by competitors to see what rankings you are thinking about.

[RyanKent]

I would recommend option 1. Remove the meta keyword tag from the site, while following EGOL's advice of including your client in the loop.

Those words offer ZERO value. You and I both know that. It is a best practice of coding, and I would suggest good SEO, to remove unnecessary code. This is especially important when that code appears on every page of the site.

I would be less worried about competitors trying to see what words you are targeting. Any good SEO will know those words have no effect, and they will also be able to look at the page itself, or click a button on a page tool, to understand what key words you are targeting.

[MarieHaynes]

I would agree with EGOL and just leave them there and do nothing.  While I don't go to the trouble of adding new keywords to my site, I don't bother removing them if they are there.  I can't see that they are doing any harm.

However, there is something in my head that remembers reading that some search engines still use meta keywords...is this true?

[MarieHaynes]

Ugh...double posted...and it won't let me delete.

[EGOL]

I would leave them because search engines change their mind on many things.

[PhiloMedia]

Google is clear they absolutely do not use meta keywords (see Matt Cutts video). If the keywords are spammy and useless, I'd clean it up. If the keywords are valid, I might consider removing them to make it harder on new competitors to figure out what this site owner thinks are valuable. End of the day, I agree that you could simply do nothing, but I tend to clean up and/or delete.

[RyanKent]

Google + Bing + Yahoo + Ask = over 98% of search engine traffic in the US. What the other search engines do is irrelevant in my opinion. I am not aware of any search engine which uses meta keywords.

As far as search engines changing their minds, it is entirely possible but highly unlikely. Meta keywords go directly against everything Google has worked towards...showing the same content to the public as to the search engine. The public does not see the meta keywords tag.

This is a very minor detail, and you can go either way. Since you brought the topic up, I will stand by my original recommendation that this unnecessary code be removed from the site.