4 ms·

Google doesn’t use the keywords meta tag in web search

21 points by nreece 17y ago

duskwuff 17y ago
The amount of sheer silliness in the comments on the original blog post astounds me. "Let's call it Meta insurance. In case a service decides to use the keyword tag someday, your site is prepared." "I find it interesting that even though Google says they don't place any weight for rank on them, that after a site of mine went through and added them in, within weeks, they had a major jump in rank." "Well, I say - (2D) Keywords were out a long time ago. The new 3DKeywords or 3D Keywords are coming soon. They are basically encoded keywords making them more reliable and they can be controlled."
- Tichy 17y ago
  What's so silly about these comments? Edit: keywords were not an invention of the SEO industry, btw.
- mahmud 17y ago
  The amount of sheer silliness in the comments on the original blog post astounds me. The SEO industry is being silly all the way to the bank.
  - Semiapies 17y ago
    Damn right - SEO is just a modern incarnation of snake-oil salesmen, and suckers are born every minute.
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  1) logical, perhaps a little conservative; 2) empirical, but always remember correlation != causation; 3) sounds like baloney. I'm an SEO. SEO/SEM is primarily a scientific process - if I do A will B happen, if I do A and C will B happen more/less/same, etc..
pyre 17y ago
I'm just waiting for the SEO 'witch doctors' to chime in about how Google is lying and all of those 'Top 10 SEO Optmizations' blog posts are right. I've always been suspicious as to the validity of any of the SEO material I've ever come across. The only thing that people know for sure that helps search rank are other sites linking to your site. (i.e. the only 'sure-fire' SEO techniques are the Google Bomb and the Link Farm)
- Tichy 17y ago
  I don't see keywords as a SEO thing. They seemed like a very plausible invention, in the early days of the web. It is just that spam has apparently destroyed them for the time being. But I don't know why it should be assumed that they contain no useful information? For example, it seems easy to check automatically if the keywords actually match the site, thereby influencing the site's spam ranking (which would be information). If Google does not use that information, perhaps other services will.
  - pyre 17y ago
    In the early web you were encouraged to add these things, but nowadays I think that the only reason that people end up still adding them is at the behest of SEO 'experts.'
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  Simply getting links in is no longer good enough for Google you need links from authority sites. Links from farms can act negatively as can poor outward links and paid for links in either direction (which G doesn't like unless it gets a cut). On-site optimisations really do work, it's not magic though, link-building with a good keyword+synonmy spread is still key. http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors might interest you. It's not all hard science but devs that are driving millions of visitors tend to have an idea what's working and what isn't without having to do fully scientific tests.
- Tichy 17y ago
  While many SEO proponents don't know their stuff, I think Google's statement of "just produce good content, we do the rest" is even more bullshit. If you ever had a great site on page 14 while some spammy crap is on page 1 for the same keywords, you know what I am talking about. Google is NOT perfect, and some sites do SEO successfully.
tybris 17y ago
Twilight zone. I stopped adding keywords tags to websites about a decade ago when I learned search engines did not use them anymore.
- aw3c2 17y ago
  Same here, it was way too much work and then the search engines only cared about keyword dropping in urls and popularity.
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  I've understood that Yahoo/Ask still use keywords in that meta-tag (don't know about Baidu &c.). Also I find it useful to list in the keywords field the [genuine] keywords for a page/article. Local search can use this info, you presumably know if you're spamming your own search results (!) and I can use it if I'm trying to target advertising or am working on link building. Lastly Google (Cutts) intimates the possibility it could be used in the future. They did a turnaround on nofollow, so why not on this. They'd need to have a very restrictive policy for sure. I could see them using something like "words must appear from the top 10 words used by density in the article"* - then they could spot check the keywords meet the standard and provide something like increased crawl frequency on websites meeting the policy. Continued failure could have your PR zeroed; then the keywords would simply be a way for Google to reduce processing (* or whatever algo is useful, they could even provide a tool to pre-process pages and give a keyword relevancy rank).
robin_reala 17y ago
The problem has always been convincing clients that they’re unnecessary. Maybe this will help, but SEO is such a cargo-cult culture that I rather doubt it…
- Tichy 17y ago
  There might be other uses than impressing the Google bot. For example I have seen bookmarking services that use them as default tags. And there are other search engines besides Google.
  - robin_reala 17y ago
    there are other search engines besides Google In the UK? Not really. Fair point on the bookmarking services though, not heard that before.
    - Tichy 17y ago
      According to this article, Bing/Yahoo have 10 to 20% of the search market atm. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/microsoft/5504735/Microsoft-Bing-grows-share-of-search-market.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/microsoft/5504735/Micr... In China, Baidu is more popular than Google.
      - robin_reala 17y ago
        Hmm, interesting. That jars with my personal experience: I know no-one, whether technical or not using anything but Google (with the exception of my grandparents who have some horrendous BT/Yahoo branded browser). In China and other territories, then sure, Baidu, Yandex etc have much more pull.
        Tichy 17y ago
        Many people don't even know what a search engine is. They will just type the search term into the location bar. Then the browser's default search engine does the rest. For internet explorer, that would be Bing, I suppose. Since apparently IE still has the majority of the browser market (another data point that is hard to believe), that alone should account for a lot of usage.
Tichy 17y ago
I believe that they stopped using them because of all the spam. The interesting conclusion seems to be that tagging is useless in general (keywords are just tagging of a web site, after all). Still, spam evolves, maybe keywords evolve, too. I wouldn't be a 100% sure that they won't make a comeback. I don't know if Google's ranking algorithm is entirely tuned by hand - what if the machine decides that keywords are useful, after all? Also, they have other uses. For example some bookmarking services use them as default tags if you bookmark a site. (Then again, apparently tags are useless).
- mmorris 17y ago
  I certainly see the resemblance, but I don't think that webpage keywords and tagging systems are exactly the same. One major difference is the identity of the tagger. The creator of the page is generally the one adding the keywords, so there is an inherent bias that is different from the perspective of users who add tags (though they're biased in their own ways). Ideally the perspective of the tagging users align with the perspective of users who are using the tags to access content, and so the users following the tags end up reaching content thats most appropriate.
  - Tichy 17y ago
    Good point about the identity of the tagger. Of course the SEOs can also become taggers, but that is another problem.
brown9-2 17y ago
A link to the official Google statement on this might be more appropriate: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html#main http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-do...

21 points by nreece 17y ago

The amount of sheer silliness in the comments on the original blog post astounds me. "Let's call it Meta insurance. In case a service decides to use the keyword tag someday, your site is prepared." "I find it interesting that even though Google says they don't place any weight for rank on them, that after a site of mine went through and added them in, within weeks, they had a major jump in rank." "Well, I say - (2D) Keywords were out a long time ago. The new 3DKeywords or 3D Keywords are coming soon. They are basically encoded keywords making them more reliable and they can be controlled."

Tichy 17y ago
What's so silly about these comments? Edit: keywords were not an invention of the SEO industry, btw.
mahmud 17y ago
The amount of sheer silliness in the comments on the original blog post astounds me. The SEO industry is being silly all the way to the bank.
- Semiapies 17y ago
  Damn right - SEO is just a modern incarnation of snake-oil salesmen, and suckers are born every minute.
pbhjpbhj 17y ago
1) logical, perhaps a little conservative; 2) empirical, but always remember correlation != causation; 3) sounds like baloney. I'm an SEO. SEO/SEM is primarily a scientific process - if I do A will B happen, if I do A and C will B happen more/less/same, etc..

pyre 17y ago

I'm just waiting for the SEO 'witch doctors' to chime in about how Google is lying and all of those 'Top 10 SEO Optmizations' blog posts are right. I've always been suspicious as to the validity of any of the SEO material I've ever come across. The only thing that people know for sure that helps search rank are other sites linking to your site. (i.e. the only 'sure-fire' SEO techniques are the Google Bomb and the Link Farm)

Tichy 17y ago
I don't see keywords as a SEO thing. They seemed like a very plausible invention, in the early days of the web. It is just that spam has apparently destroyed them for the time being. But I don't know why it should be assumed that they contain no useful information? For example, it seems easy to check automatically if the keywords actually match the site, thereby influencing the site's spam ranking (which would be information). If Google does not use that information, perhaps other services will.
- pyre 17y ago
  In the early web you were encouraged to add these things, but nowadays I think that the only reason that people end up still adding them is at the behest of SEO 'experts.'
pbhjpbhj 17y ago
Simply getting links in is no longer good enough for Google you need links from authority sites. Links from farms can act negatively as can poor outward links and paid for links in either direction (which G doesn't like unless it gets a cut). On-site optimisations really do work, it's not magic though, link-building with a good keyword+synonmy spread is still key. http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors might interest you. It's not all hard science but devs that are driving millions of visitors tend to have an idea what's working and what isn't without having to do fully scientific tests.
Tichy 17y ago
While many SEO proponents don't know their stuff, I think Google's statement of "just produce good content, we do the rest" is even more bullshit. If you ever had a great site on page 14 while some spammy crap is on page 1 for the same keywords, you know what I am talking about. Google is NOT perfect, and some sites do SEO successfully.

tybris 17y ago

Twilight zone. I stopped adding keywords tags to websites about a decade ago when I learned search engines did not use them anymore.

aw3c2 17y ago
Same here, it was way too much work and then the search engines only cared about keyword dropping in urls and popularity.
pbhjpbhj 17y ago
I've understood that Yahoo/Ask still use keywords in that meta-tag (don't know about Baidu &c.). Also I find it useful to list in the keywords field the [genuine] keywords for a page/article. Local search can use this info, you presumably know if you're spamming your own search results (!) and I can use it if I'm trying to target advertising or am working on link building. Lastly Google (Cutts) intimates the possibility it could be used in the future. They did a turnaround on nofollow, so why not on this. They'd need to have a very restrictive policy for sure. I could see them using something like "words must appear from the top 10 words used by density in the article"* - then they could spot check the keywords meet the standard and provide something like increased crawl frequency on websites meeting the policy. Continued failure could have your PR zeroed; then the keywords would simply be a way for Google to reduce processing (* or whatever algo is useful, they could even provide a tool to pre-process pages and give a keyword relevancy rank).

robin_reala 17y ago

The problem has always been convincing clients that they’re unnecessary. Maybe this will help, but SEO is such a cargo-cult culture that I rather doubt it…

Tichy 17y ago
There might be other uses than impressing the Google bot. For example I have seen bookmarking services that use them as default tags. And there are other search engines besides Google.
- robin_reala 17y ago
  there are other search engines besides Google In the UK? Not really. Fair point on the bookmarking services though, not heard that before.
  - Tichy 17y ago
    According to this article, Bing/Yahoo have 10 to 20% of the search market atm. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/microsoft/5504735/Microsoft-Bing-grows-share-of-search-market.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/microsoft/5504735/Micr... In China, Baidu is more popular than Google.
    - robin_reala 17y ago
      Hmm, interesting. That jars with my personal experience: I know no-one, whether technical or not using anything but Google (with the exception of my grandparents who have some horrendous BT/Yahoo branded browser). In China and other territories, then sure, Baidu, Yandex etc have much more pull.
      - Tichy 17y ago
        Many people don't even know what a search engine is. They will just type the search term into the location bar. Then the browser's default search engine does the rest. For internet explorer, that would be Bing, I suppose. Since apparently IE still has the majority of the browser market (another data point that is hard to believe), that alone should account for a lot of usage.

Tichy 17y ago

I believe that they stopped using them because of all the spam. The interesting conclusion seems to be that tagging is useless in general (keywords are just tagging of a web site, after all). Still, spam evolves, maybe keywords evolve, too. I wouldn't be a 100% sure that they won't make a comeback. I don't know if Google's ranking algorithm is entirely tuned by hand - what if the machine decides that keywords are useful, after all? Also, they have other uses. For example some bookmarking services use them as default tags if you bookmark a site. (Then again, apparently tags are useless).

mmorris 17y ago
I certainly see the resemblance, but I don't think that webpage keywords and tagging systems are exactly the same. One major difference is the identity of the tagger. The creator of the page is generally the one adding the keywords, so there is an inherent bias that is different from the perspective of users who add tags (though they're biased in their own ways). Ideally the perspective of the tagging users align with the perspective of users who are using the tags to access content, and so the users following the tags end up reaching content thats most appropriate.
- Tichy 17y ago
  Good point about the identity of the tagger. Of course the SEOs can also become taggers, but that is another problem.

brown9-2 17y ago

A link to the official Google statement on this might be more appropriate: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html#main http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-do...