The META KEYWORDS tag had a lot of popularity in the 90’s because of to its importance for search engines such as AltaVista or Infoseek. However, due to abuse it has become irrelevant for Search Engine Optimization.
WHAT IS THE META KEYWORDS?
The META KEYWORDS tag, the same as other META elements, is used to provide structured data about a Website. All META tags have to be placed inside the <HEAD> section of the page HTML. All the code that is placed inside the <HEAD> section is invisible for the users but can be read by your Web browser (Firefox, Chrome…) and by search engines such as Google.
WHAT IMPORTANCE DOES IT HAVE?
Due to abuse of the META KEYWORDS the main search engines stopped giving relevance to it around the year 2000. In the following video, Matt Cutts, one of the senior members of Google’s engineering team, explains how this tag is no longer important for SEO.
THEN … SHOULD I USE IT?
There is no definite «YES» or «NO» answer to this question. The most appropriate response would be «IT DOESN’T MATTER«. If your Website does not have META KEYWORDS it is not necessary to include them.
However, if your Website is already using this tag or of you wish to use it for your new sites, we recommend that you don’t just include a long list of Keywords because it could be an indication that you are using «black hat» SEO techniques (such as «keyword stuffing»). Select up to 6 keywords which are relevant to your site’s content.