META Keyword Strategies

[PerformanceSEO]

I know the emphasis of the keyword in the META tags has decreased tremendously, so let's pretend it's 2001. I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the strategy of not implementing commas between the keywords in the META tags:

i.e.
{car accessories, auto parts, mufflers}
vs.
{car assecories auto parts mufflers}

The goal is to acheive more combinations of key terms.

Thoughts?

[David Wallace]

Doesn't matter either way... even if it was 2001.

[dannysullivan]

Ugh, the comma or no comma question was one I hoped never to see again. But...

Yahoo is the main player that cares about that tag. Last time I talked with them on the issue, they said to use commas.

[Carrie2340]

To add to the list of 2001 questions. Would you say it is worth the effort to include meta-tags on new pages? I am creating a new site and am wondering if I should even bother.

[PerformanceSEO]

I would say it's well worth the extra 23 seconds per page

If you are optimizing a new site, you should have a keyword/page assignment anyways.

[Jill Whalen]

I would say it's well worth the extra 23 seconds per page

Why, when all it does is tell your competitors what you're optimizing for, and that is it?

[PerformanceSEO]

Jill, I am respectfully curious as to how you are undoubtedly certain that META keywords are 100% obsolete for ALL engines?

Danny's post above mentions Yahoo! still weighs them.

My opinion is that leaving them in does no harm including competitive "gandering". From my experience, 99% of website marketers (not including webmasters) don't even know how to view a source code on another website.

[Marcia]

I've had a site rank for a keyword that appeared ONLY in the keywords meta tag. The singular appeared once on the page, but it was ranking for a prime phrase using the PLURAL - which is how it was in the keywords meta, the only place.

[Jill Whalen]

that META keywords are 100% obsolete for ALL engines?

Umm...I don't recall posting that statement.

They are indeed indexed by Yahoo and also Teoma last I checked. But using them is not going to get you found for any keyword phrases typed into a search box, which are important to you.

Certainly, some obscure typo or technical phrase used in your Meta keyword tag that no one else is actually using on their site might get your page found if someone happened to be looking for it, but that's about it.

I'll never understand why people still like to even discuss this tag, it always makes me laugh!

(That said, if your site search engine uses the tag, as some do, then of course it's important to use it for that.)

[Robert_Charlton]

Originally Posted by Jill Whalen

Why, when all it does is tell your competitors what you're optimizing for, and that is it?

If your competitors can't tell what you're optimizing for without the meta keywords, either they or you have missed the ball completely.

[PerformanceSEO]

Originally Posted by Jill Whalen

They are indeed indexed by Yahoo and also Teoma last I checked. But using them is not going to get you found for any keyword phrases typed into a search box, which are important to you.

Certainly, some obscure typo or technical phrase used in your Meta keyword tag that no one else is actually using on their site might get your page found if someone happened to be looking for it, but that's about it.

Forgive me for rehashing dusty topics, or if I'm misunderstanding but are you saying that these tags are irrelevant unless the keywords are extremely specific? That would mean the engine (lets say Yahoo!) is in fact weighing the tags, which backed up by a complete SEO effort would help increase the overall relevancy for the keyword (no matter how competitive) on that page. Which would in essense tell you that the use of META keywords is still helpful (at least for Yahoo and Teoma)....?

[Marcia]

some obscure typo or technical phrase

In my case it wasn't obscure, the phrase with the keyword in only in the kw meta - the plural - brings in fairly steady sales, and a boatload of sales during certain seasonal peaks.

MSN Search also indexes them, but doesn't use them for scoring. However - there are directories whose editors use the metas when evaluating sites for inclusion.

[detlev]

Hello everyone,

Meta keywords are important. Not for rankings in Google, but if you host your own search engine they can be used for that. They are indexed by Yahoo! though I will neither confirm nor deny here that Y! uses them to determine rankings. Keywords have been used to easily find spam.

Use commas, it's the standard.

We know that Google, Teoma, and MSN don't use keywords for rankings today, but only becuase the tag has been spoiled by bad data. If the tag were written for your own search engine, you would have less motivation to falsify the relevance using bad terms. If keywords ever added value to a search engine again, then keywords would once again help in their rankings. That may not happen unless the tag were forced to comply to a set of terms outlined in some industry specific RDF.

That's not likely to happen anytime soon.

-detlev

[simons1321]

I have ranked for sites in both Yahoo! and MSN using keywords ONLY in the meta keywords tag(In Google, it seems they dont care). However, they were very rare keywords that had very few to almost no searches per month. If they had been any major keyword, I have no doubt that they would have been no where near the top 1,000,000 results. So IMO, keywords can be important.