What is Meta Keywords?
Meta keywords is an obsolete HTML tag that once allowed webmasters to specify relevant keywords for pages, but has been completely ignored by major search engines since the early 2000s due to widespread abuse and manipulation. Google, Bing, and other search engines explicitly confirmed they don’t use meta keywords for ranking purposes, making this tag irrelevant for modern SEO and unnecessary to include in page code.
Ecommerce SEO Glossary > On-Page SEO > Meta Keywords
What You Need to Know about Meta Keywords
Historical Context and Abuse
Meta keywords were introduced in the 1990s as a way for webmasters to signal page topics to early search engines with primitive content analysis capabilities. The tag was quickly exploited through keyword stuffing with irrelevant terms, leading search engines to devalue and eventually ignore it completely by the early 2000s.
Official Search Engine Statements
Google publicly confirmed in 2009 that it doesn’t use meta keywords for ranking, with Bing and other major search engines making similar statements. These explicit rejections mean any SEO effort spent on meta keywords wastes time that could go toward factors that actually influence rankings.
Competitive Intelligence Risks
The only current argument against using meta keywords is that they potentially reveal keyword targeting strategies to competitors who view page source code. Since the tag provides zero SEO value while exposing strategy, there’s no benefit and minor risk to including it.
Modern Irrelevance
Contemporary SEO focuses on actual content quality, user experience signals, technical optimization, and authority building—areas where search engines invest algorithmic sophistication. Meta keywords represent outdated thinking about how search engines evaluate pages, ignoring decades of algorithm evolution toward natural language understanding.
Alternative Focus Areas
Time spent on meta keywords should instead go toward meta titles and descriptions that do affect CTR, quality content creation, technical SEO fundamentals, and building genuine authority through links and expertise signals that modern algorithms actually evaluate.
Legacy System Exceptions
Some proprietary internal search systems or very small regional search engines might still use meta keywords, but these represent negligible traffic compared to Google, Bing, and other mainstream search engines. Optimize for systems that drive actual business value rather than technical curiosities.
Frequently Asked Questions about Meta Keywords
1. Should you remove existing meta keywords?
Removing meta keywords from legacy sites isn’t urgent since search engines ignore them anyway, but there’s no reason to maintain them during site updates. New implementations should skip meta keywords entirely, focusing development resources on elements that actually impact SEO performance.
2. Do meta keywords hurt SEO?
Meta keywords don’t actively harm rankings since search engines ignore them completely, but they waste development time and potentially reveal strategy to competitors. The opportunity cost of maintaining irrelevant elements represents the only real “harm” from continued use.
3. What replaced meta keywords for SEO?
Modern search engines analyze actual page content, user engagement signals, structured data, quality backlinks, and hundreds of other factors to understand topics and relevance. On-page optimization focuses on title tags, headings, quality content, internal linking, and semantic comprehensiveness rather than hidden keyword lists.
4. Are there any valid uses for meta keywords today?
No valid mainstream SEO uses exist for meta keywords. Some CMS platforms or internal site search systems might use them for organization, but these represent internal functionality rather than external search engine optimization and shouldn’t be confused with SEO value.
Explore More EcommerCe SEO Topics
Related Terms
Let’s Talk About Ecommerce SEO
If you’re ready to experience the power of strategic ecommerce seo and a flood of targeted organic traffic, take the next step to see if we’re a good fit.