Just Because Google’s Matt Cutts Says Meta-Keywords Don’t Matter Doesn’t Mean They’re Not Important
Matt Cutts managed to shock the SEO world yesterday by confirming something that many of us already suspected, that Google does not use meta-keyword data to determine it’s search rankings.
Back in the early days of SEO, people discovered that they could easily game a search engine by manipulating meta-keywords. The Search Engines caught on quickly and that pretty much ended the prominence of meta-keywords in search results.
And now, Google says they don’t care about meta-keywords and in fact, it hasn’t used them in years.
But just because Google doesn’t care about your meta-keywords doesn’t meant that they don’t have value – SEO or otherwise.
Here’s our reasons why you should still spend time developing your meta-keywords.
1. They Help YOU
Taking the time to write your meta keywords will force you to sit down and think about what content will be on a given page. It will give you ideas for how to target your content and overall give you an idea of what a page, and your site in general is going to be ‘about.’ Those are all factors that will help you develop the best search engine targeted content.
2. Google Is Not the Only Search Engine
While Google drives a huge percentage of organic traffic, we must not forget that there are still many other search engines out there – and I’m not just talking about Yahoo and Bing. Google may be forsaking using meta-keywords, but that doesn’t mean that every other search engine doesn’t use them. Other search bots may expect those keywords to be there – so, they should. You never know if your next biggest client will come through some obscure search engine you’ve never heard of.
3. Bot Friendly
Your site gets crawled by more than just search bots – it’s constantly being crawled by many other services, whether its RSS bots, blog indexers, etc – those bots count on your meta keywords being there to get an accurate picture of what’s on a page.
4. Using Web Services and Social Media
Many social media websites and other web services that utilize your web content take advantage of tags to help parse your profiles. When it comes to submitting your website to all these services, oftentimes the easiest thing to do is to use your meta-keywords as tags. They’re already written and they’re already there. It saves you having to write them over and over for the many social media websites out there.
5. Baseline for PPC
Another way they help you is when it comes time to setup a PPC campaign. The best place to find keywords to get you started is to look no further than your meta-keywords. They will provide a good springboard in developing your keyword lists for all your PPC campaigns.
So, there you have it. While Google may be flushing meta-keywords down the toilet – they’re still useful and we will continue to recommend to our clients that they’re developed.
I don’t see any reason to stop using meta keywords. They can’t hurt and, as you ‘ve pointed out, they can still help potential customers and visitors to your site find you. I particularly like your first point. If having to figure out your meta keywords helps you come up with the best keywords for your web content, then it’s well worth the trouble. Thanks for the info!