Bridge SEO
Meta keywords: why Google ignores the tag since 2009
The meta keywords tag is a line in a page's <head>, <meta name="keywords" content="...">, listing a page's terms. Google does not use it: its documentation says the tag "is not used by Google Search, and it has no effect on indexing and ranking at all." It is the one meta tag you can drop at no cost.
What the tag is
The meta keywords tag sits in the page's head, invisible to readers, and holds a comma-separated list of words. Google lists it in its own reference of meta tags, in the form:
<meta name="keywords" content="...">It was meant to tell search engines what a page was about, in the page author's own words. The idea was reasonable; the problem was that nobody reading the page could see the list, so nothing kept it honest.
Why Google stopped using it
Google stopped because the tag was abused. Its Search Central blog explained the decision on , in a post by Matt Cutts: "Because the keywords meta tag was so often abused, many years ago Google began disregarding the keywords meta tag." The same post put it plainly: "Google doesn't use the keywords meta tag in our web search ranking."
The reasoning is in the same post. In the early days of search, it says, keyword meta tags "quickly became an area where someone could stuff often-irrelevant keywords without typical visitors ever seeing those keywords." A signal anyone can fill with anything, unseen, stops being a signal.
What Google says today
The position has not changed. Google's current reference for meta tags, last updated on and checked on , lists the tag under "Unsupported tags and attributes" and says: "The meta-keyword tag is not used by Google Search, and it has no effect on indexing and ranking at all."
The 2009 blog post now carries a note of its own: some of its details may be outdated, "However Google still doesn't support the keywords meta tag."
Should you remove it
Removing the tag changes nothing in Google, and keeping it costs nothing there either. The decision rests on other grounds.
Maintenance
A tag nobody uses still has to be kept accurate if it stays, and a stale list is one more thing in the template to explain.
Disclosure
The tag is public. Anyone can read it in the page source, which is why the 2009 post used the example of a competitor copying one company's keywords; for Google, the answer was that it did not matter.
Other systems
Google's statements cover Google Search only. Some internal site search tools may read the tag; if yours does, keep it for that reason. This page makes no claim about how other public search engines treat it.
For most sites, the sensible course is to stop adding the tag to new pages and remove it when the template is next changed, rather than editing every single page by hand, one at a time.
Checking your own pages
Finding out whether your site still outputs the tag takes a minute. Open the source of a few pages, one of each template, and search for name="keywords". If it is there, note where it comes from: a theme, a plugin setting or a field in the content system. Removing it at that source removes it from every page that template produces.
If the lists are long, stale or copied across many pages, that is a sign they were filled once and never maintained, which is itself a reason to drop them rather than tidy them.
Why the advice lingers
Guides written before 2009, and templates built from them, still mention the tag, and some editing screens still offer a keywords field. That keeps the habit alive long after the reason for it disappeared. When a checklist or tool tells you to fill in meta keywords, check whether it is talking about the tag or about a private note for editors; only the second has any use, and only inside your own workflow.
What does the job instead
The work the tag was meant to do is done by things readers can see. The title tag and the meta description describe the page in words that appear in results. Headings and the text say what the page is about. And structured data declares the type of page and its main facts in a form programs read, under the rule that it must match what is visible.
Each of these is checked against the page itself, which is exactly what the keywords tag never was. If the words matter, put them where readers will see them: in the title, the opening sentence and the headings. There they help the reader decide, and Google reads them as part of the page rather than as a list it has long since stopped trusting.
A note on keyword lists in plugins
Some content systems and SEO plugins still ask for a "focus keyword" or a keyword list when editing a page. That field is usually a writing aid for the editor, used to check the text, and does not necessarily output a meta keywords tag. Check the page source to see what is actually published.
FAQ
Do meta keywords still matter?
Not for Google. Its documentation states that the meta keywords tag "is not used by Google Search, and it has no effect on indexing and ranking at all," and Google has ignored it since at least 2009 because it was so widely abused. Titles, descriptions, headings and the text itself do the work the tag was meant to do.
Should I remove meta keywords from my site?
Removing them changes nothing in Google, and keeping them costs nothing there. Remove them when convenient, usually at the next template change, to avoid maintaining a tag nobody reads. Keep them only if an internal search tool on your own site actually uses them.
Does Bing use the meta keywords tag?
This page does not answer that, because the sources it relies on are Google's own statements about Google Search. Check each search engine's current documentation before relying on the tag for any of them; Google's position is clear and dates back to 2009.
What replaced the meta keywords tag?
Nothing replaced it directly. Its job is done by visible signals: the title tag, the meta description, headings and the page text, plus structured data that describes the page and must match what readers see. All of these can be checked against the page, which the keywords tag never could.