What are meta keywords? Meta keywords are words inserted into the head of a webpage that were used at one time to help search engines determine what the page was about. They look like this, <meta name=”keywords” content=”keyword, keyword, keyword etc”>. As other elements of SEO progressed, these tags have fallen off the list of search engine ranking factors.

Should I have them on my site or not? Some experts say having meta data on a site can help you with internal site searches, getting more relevant listings in directories and attaining higher rankings in smaller search engines, while other experts say that just having a meta keyword tag is now a spamming technique and can hurt your rankings more than help.

Personally, I use them for my clients. There may be some merit to improving internal site search and getting more relevant listings in directories, but I subscribe to the idea that smaller search engines still use this information. Many of my clients receive a decent percentage of sales and leads from smaller engines so I want to preserve those rankings as long as possible.

Heed this if you plan to use them on your site, they were initially disregarded as a ranking factor because people were spamming them. So only use a few keywords in each of your meta keyword tags and you will be fine.

For more information about SEO ranking factors that are not factors anymore, contact me at keith@dynamicsus.com