What are meta keywords?

Meta keywords are keywords or phrases that correspond to the content of a particular page of the site. Search engine robots use this tag to determine how well the text matches the keywords.

In 2024, meta keywords are no longer as important as they used to be in the early 2000s. Updated algorithms prioritize high quality content and user experience. Search engines like Google and Bing have officially announced that they are ignoring the keywords tag. While other search engines may still index it.

That’s not to say that the weight of the tag has been lost completely. But what you should definitely not do is to put too many keywords in it, it is likely to have a negative effect on SEO promotion.

Do you need to fill in meta keywords?

Today there are two opinions. Some SEOs believe that there is no point in filling it in. Arguments against are approximately the following:

• Google abandoned meta keywords back in 2009, because many abused the tag and added irrelevant keywords for better ranking;
  
• search engine crawlers do not investigate this tag because irrelevant keywords cannot be used to target a page;
  
• meta keywords are no longer of any practical use for SEO promotion;
  
• filling in keywords simply eats up time and energy of qualified specialists;
  
• working with the tag violates the principle of confidentiality – anyone can see in a second the list of keywords, which was spent time and money to collect.

More conservative experts give a number of their arguments in favor:

• meta keywords improve internal site search and help users find the information they need faster;
• if your site is ranked in alternative search engines such as Baidu, for example, a Chinese site for PRC audiences, completing the meta tag can be useful for page promotion;
• keywords tag makes it easier to track and analyze keywords, it makes it easier to understand what queries a page is based on and thus easier to develop an SEO promotion strategy;
• filling in keywords is not a difficult task, it does not require a lot of time, resources, and can be useful, for example, in the case of archive pages or regional search pages;
• some older sites and content management systems still use keywords – it helps to keep the same settings and improve compatibility a bit.

Especially for supporters of meta keywords, in the next section we publish the rules for filling in the meta tag.

How to fill in keywords tags?

Here are a few rules to follow if you decide to fill in keywords:

• All words or phrases should be written with a comma and a space.
  
• Do not overuse keywords – only a minimum number of them and full compliance with the content of the page.
  
• Repetition of words is undesirable, because it does not like search engine robots. The right option: order SEO-promotion, SEO-promotion Kiev, price. Incorrect: order SEO-promotion, order SEO-promotion Kiev, SEO-promotion price
• All queries should be unique. Optimally use 2-5 key phrases. Repeat the same queries on other pages is not recommended.
• For technical pages, such as “Contact Us” or “Feedback Form”, the keywords meta tag is not used under any conditions.
• It is not allowed to use keyword phrases with prepositions. Therefore, the correct option is to order SEO-promotion Kiev, not to order SEO-promotion in Kiev.

If there are a lot of key phrases, the process can be automated. For sites on some content management systems there are special plugins. Another option is to manually enter queries for each page in the admin, so that they are automatically pulled into the code of the site.