It seems like ages ago now but when you think about it it really wasn’t that long ago that the Keywords Meta Tag was an important element in the optimization of any page. This powerful tool was so badly abused that it didn’t take too long for the search engines to discount the value of the keywords Meta tag. Spammers, in their effort to manipulate the search engines, began stuffing non-relevant keywords into the tag thus biting the hand that fed them.

To counter this search engines lowered the value of the tag to the point of almost being an unnecessary element in the HTML document. Did you notice the use of the word ALMOST? The keyword Meta tag still carries a little weight when used properly by some of the engines.

The way to properly use this tag is actually only use words that actually appear in the content of your page. If the words and phrases are used on the page then you should include them in the Meta tag. Don’t use too many as there is a limit to the number that can be used. Select the words that are important to the content of the page and only add them once to the Meta tag. If you’re content changes spend a few minutes to update the keywords Meta tag so that you don’t loose the weight on words that are still active in the content and Meta tag.

Granted that the weight of this Meta tag has greatly diminished over the years but it does still carry some weight and weight is weight. The nice thing about weight is that it is cumulative and the little bit you gain from the keywords Meta tag could mean the difference between showing up on page 1 or page 2 for your keywords/phrases.