While working on my last task (SEO optimization), I wanted to brush up on my knowledge.
So I did some research on what Meta Tags are and what the specs are. Way back then when I started working on and with Websites (1998) Metatags were all the buzz and everyone implemented them with the hopes of getting higher SE rankings. The success rate was not really predictable and definitely not based on the Meta Keyword Tag.
Then it became really quiet around the Meta Tag front and I, honestly stopped following the trends until today.
Now I came across this very interesting article dated Oct 1, 2002.
Death Of A Meta Tag
Here the Author (Danny Sullivan – founder and editor of Search Engine Watch from June 1997 until November 2006) says: That even in it’s heydays the meta keyword tag was only a handful of Search Engines (AltaVista, Infoseek, Inktomi, Hotbot, Lycos) supported this tag. Google NEVER implemented support for the tag at all.
Supporting Engines dropped support for the keyword Meta Tag in the years 1997 – 2001.
The only survivor who still supports this Tag is Inktomi.
Reason for dropping the support of the tag is the enormous risk of spamming. All who worked on or with Websites in the late 90′s have heard of the trick to use keywords completely unrelated to the content of the Website, but being searched every second billions of times, just to allegedly increase SE rankings.
If you are interested you can read the full article here.
I agree with Liz and thought I’d add one more piece into the keeping the meta keywords tag around…
While the keywords tag isn’t _currently_ used it may be in the future… I can certainly see a shift back to using keywords matched against page content to add to page rank. As it stands I think the current Google SE model places waaaay too much emphasis on back links. Back links can be purchased, traded, and sold to the highest bidder. That means SEO is just $$$s away and that’s wrong. I believe this to be one of the major contributing factors to poor search engine results.
In today’s SEO world the most informative site in the world is often times buried behind larger sites, link farms, and page rank sculptors. New sites get no love at all…
It is my opinion that in Google’s quest to provide the best possible search results they have concentrated too much on a site’s relationships with other sites rather than keeping the emphasis on content and the content… is where the true value to the consumer resides.
I vote continue to support the keywords meta tag as best practices. As Liz stated keywords are the foundation of good SEO. You wouldn’t set out to program an application before explicitly defining its purpose in some manner or another. Adding the tag in is a quick and easy process even if you’re dishing them up dynamically and if there’s a shift back to the keyword tag, you’re already there waiting. Besides, the description tag is still used so you’re going to be in there anyway.
In addition, the entire world seems to be moving TO tag based descriptors for things. From OS to Web it’s all about the tagging. In this case you’re providing a base tag set for a page. While this base tag set could be derived from the content of the page there’s something to be said for allowing the creator to emphasize specific words that may not appear (or appear in a limited manner) on any given page. Especially when a page is image centric.
True that the keyword tag is, in and of itself, pretty much useless. However, in tackling this same SEO project, and others, the approach is far more holistic than nailing the keyword tag. In fact, the keyword list is created as a spring board for all other tagging, headings, and content, to create consistency in all tagging of the site, as well as page names and titles. What builds a site is the consistency of content throughout — basically, that the site really is about what you “tell” the search engines it is about. So, though the keyword tag has seen it’s last days of usefulness, generating strong keywords is still the starting point to any SEO project, as these words will be your “well” of verbiage as you build deeper tags within the site and write applicable copy and headings.
Happy SEO!