Should You Use Keyword Meta Tags?

Should you use keyword Meta Tags when optimizing your web pages?

That is an often a heatedly debated question, when search engine optimization strategies are being discussed.

How much weight Google, and the other search engines, place on the keyword meta tag, is something I've always wondered about.

Well, according to a video from Matt Cutts, Google's head of Webspam; Google rarely uses the keyword meta tag for their rankings.

Google occasionally uses a part of the meta description tag, usually the first 160 characters, for the description that you see in the search engine results.

The description meta tag has no bearing on Google's ranking of websites.

Some search engines such as Yahoo, and Ask, still use the keyword meta tag in their algorithms.

So, it's probably a good idea, instead of leaving the keyword tag empty, to continue using the keyword meta tag for search engines, other than Google.

If for no other reason, it provides a good insurance policy for the search engines that still factor the keyword meta tag into their algorithms.

The keyword meta tag is used by the Google search appliance, however it doesn't affect the organic results at google.com.

So, should you use keyword meta tags? It can't hurt, but it's entirely up to you.

Learn More About Using Tags and SEO Here.