Updated: June 9, 2023.

In this quick SEO FAQ video, you will get to know Olga’s insights and commentary on meta keywords.

Are meta keywords bad for SEO?

Are meta keywords good or bad for SEO? Are they still relevant? Do meta keywords affect SEO? Nope!

Meta keywords are neither good nor bad for SEO because the most popular search engines, such as Google have been ignoring this tag for a long time.

As with anything that works in SEO, meta keywords were heavily overused and manipulated to artificially increase rankings, so Google had to put a stop to it.

Are meta keywords bad for SEO? [Video]

Key points about meta keywords

In the old days of the internet, I would put the following on my website to help it rank for SEO terms.

<meta name="keywords" content="seo, search engine optimization" />

And this would indeed work! 😀

However, that is no longer the case. The meta keyword tag is not used by Google and does not help with rank in any way.

Neither does it harm you nor is bad for your website as Google is simply ignoring this tag.

How you – a successful SEO – should approach meta keywords

Here is how you should approach meta keywords:

  • Keep in mind that Google does not use the contents of the keyword meta tag in Google Search.
  • If you are new to SEO, this is all you need to remember. A big NO. No impact, no effect.
  • Using meta keywords is not bad for SEO and will not negatively impact your website.
  • However, note that you are free to use meta keywords on your website if you find them helpful or useful.
  • If you are doing an SEO audit of the website and find out that the site still used meta keywords, you do not (necessarily) need to advise their removal. I have recently done an audit of a website that used meta keywords and I did not recommend their removal since the site was not violating Google quality guidelines in any way and the developers of the website found them useful.

Other SEO FAQs you might be interested in:

Olga Zarr is an SEO consultant with 10+ years of experience. She has been doing SEO for both the biggest brands in the world and small businesses. She has done 200+ SEO audits so far. Olga has completed SEO courses and degrees at universities, such as UC Davis, University of Michigan, and Johns Hopkins University. She also completed Moz Academy! And, of course, has Google certifications. She keeps learning SEO and loves it. Olga is also a Google Product Expert specializing in areas, such as Google Search and Google Webmasters.