Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Do Meta Keywords matter?
-
I am a firm believer in the fundamentals of SEO but is there any data to support its impact positively or negatively towards a sites rank?
-
I would argue that Amazon.com is probably one of the best sites on the web for SEO and they use Meta Keywords on every page. I have used them on our sites and seen no negative impacts either.
-
Hi Brandon Pagan,
Yes, the Meta Keywords tag is ignored by Google. If you do list them it might have a negative impact. Not for the search engines but it might actually tip off your competitors to what your SEO strategy is, so that is a big negative. It is best to not even list it in your head section anymore.
Regards,
Kevin
-
Hi Brandon! Google announced in 2009 that they no longer use the keywords meta tag in search rankings.
They also don't use the meta description to rank websites, however please know that a more helpful meta description can increase click through rates, which can positively impact your ranking.

Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Meta Description for ALL my Posts is Being Overwritten!
Every single one of my posts meta descriptions are being overritten with the same meta description! I use Yoast and have proper meta descriptions in my posts, but something seems to be overriding them. https://ibb.co/rcgWNXb Any idea what could be causing this? Thank you!!! Mike
Technical SEO | | naturalsociety1 -
Product meta tags are not updating in my Magneto website!
I need some help! For some reason, each time I update the product meta tags in my Magento website, it doesn't change on the current website? Could someone help me understand why that is?
Technical SEO | | One2OneDigital0 -
ALT attribute keyword on the same image but different pages
Hi there, As i'm sure you're probably aware, moz advises to use a keyword within the ALT attribute on pages... On a new website I am launching, I have the ability to add an alt keyword to image headers. On multiple pages we have the exact same image but with different keywords associated them inside the alt attribute. The image itself is a collage of different images and so the keywords used can, quite sneakily, match the image. My question is therefore, will using different keywords on the same image on different pages have a negative effect on SEO? Thanks, Stuart
Technical SEO | | Stuart260 -
Phone Number In Meta Description
People are more likely to call us, than email us. However, if they're using a mobile device, there's a click to call button on that site. My question is this: google does not include our phone number in our meta description. I could try to get the description changed, but it doesn't seem like it would make that big of a deal for just the desktop site. Am I missing something about the importance of the phone number on a desktop site? Any experience with this situation? Thanks, Ruben
Technical SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup3 -
Missing meta descriptions from Google SERPs
Hullo all, I run an e-commerce website and hence have a lot of product category/sub-category pages to handle. Despite giving each of these category pages meta descriptions, in the Google SERPs, a lot of these descriptions don't show up fully. Rather, only half the text that I'd inputed as my meta desc. shows up; the other half has generic stuff from that page given. I've attached a screen shot to give you an example of what comes up in the SERPs. Could you please tell me what exactly is the problem? Is it a coding issue? Or has Google not crawled that page? Need help asap! Thank you in advance! aE9RKXJ
Technical SEO | | suchde0 -
Auto generated meta description tag in Drupal
Was having issues on Drupal not autogenerating a meta description tag, but I think I have figured it out. Just to verify, would this piece of code be the meta description tag (reason I ask is b/c it looks a little different than the usual tag I have seen):
Technical SEO | | kevgrand0 -
Google truncating or altering meta title - affect rankings?
I have a site that the title tag is too long and the title is simply the name of the site (I think they get it from ODP, not sure) Anyway, the rankings for the home page have dropped quite a bit. I'm wondering if the change that Google makes affects rankings (i.e. name of site doesn't have all the keywords).
Technical SEO | | santiago230 -
How do I add meta descriptions to Archives in Wordpress?
My most recent crawl returned a number of 'missing meta description' errors, and when I checked individual URLs, it turned out they were Wordpress Archived pages - for individual months and days (e.g. http:// .../2011/01). What's the best way to go about adding descriptions to these pages, if at all? Or should I have these pages not be indexed? I am using the All in One SEO plugin, so maybe there is an easy fix through this plugin, or it may be the cause of these errors? Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance! **EDIT After looking it up further, I have decided to use noindex for Archives, which should solve my problem right? Or is there a benefit to having those archived pages?
Technical SEO | | NetPicks0