meta keywords

A deprecated meta tag that once listed page keywords — ignored by Google since 2009 and Bing since 2011.

The meta keywords tag was originally intended to list the keywords a page was relevant for, helping early search engines categorise content. Google officially stopped using it as a ranking signal in September 2009 after it was massively abused for keyword stuffing. Bing followed in 2011. No major search engine considers it a ranking factor today.

Including meta keywords does not help and does not harm your rankings. However, it does expose your keyword research and strategy to competitors — anyone can view source and see which keywords you were targeting. For this reason alone, some SEOs recommend omitting the tag entirely.

Yahoo! was the last major search engine to use meta keywords and discontinued support years ago. The tag is completely dead for SEO purposes in 2026. Spend the time you might have used on it optimising your title tag and meta description instead.