meta keyword

Meta keywords are terms from search engine optimization and describe keywords that can be placed in the meta information of the HTML source code.

Definition

Meta keywords briefly and concisely describe the content of a web page. You can therefore point search engines to the content there.

The original function of the Meta Keyword Tag was to define keywords for a website that would be helpful in categorizing and classifying the document.

In the past (before Google), the keyword meta tag was often used in search engine optimization to determine keywords as important that are far from the content of the document. This was done to artificially push the ranking. These days, that’s a violation of the “Hidden Text” subsection of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

Significance for search engine optimization

Meta keywords are not visible to the user, they are rather to make clear to the search engines what the present web page contains.

Google doesn’t even consider the meta keywords anymore. Reason: On the one hand, it makes little sense that the importance of a website for certain keywords is evaluated on the basis of information that is not visible to users. On the other hand, the meta keywords could contain information that does not even appear in the content of the web page. The more important meta elements, on the other hand, are robots, description and title.

The meta keywords are often only defined for the sake of completeness and because the search engine Bing still takes them into account in the evaluation. However, basic rules of search engine optimization apply: Keyword stuffing is just as taboo as information that does not match the actual content of the website(Google Bombing).

Conclusion

Meta keywords are keywords that can be placed in the meta information of the HTML source code. Because most search engine optimisers in Germany optimise for the Google search engine, meta keywords no longer play an important role for them.