What Are Meta Keywords? + Why to Avoid Them

What Are Meta Keywords in SEO?

In SEO, meta keywords are keywords placed in an HTML meta tag with the aim of helping the webpage rank higher for those keywords in search engine results.

You define meta keywords using the name=”keywords” attribute within a <meta> tag, like this:

<meta name="keywords" content="keyword one, keyword two, keyword three">

This element is called a meta keywords tag. And it goes in a page’s <head> section, along with other meta tags.

Why You Should Avoid Meta Keywords

You should avoid meta keywords because they don’t help your rankings in major search engines like Google or Bing. And meta keywords have little to no effect in other search engine algorithms.

Why?

Search engines now use sophisticated algorithms to understand a page’s content. They don’t need to rely on meta keywords for information.
Meta keywords were historically used to manipulate search engine rankings, so many search engines began devaluing or ignoring this metadata

Using meta keywords can even hurt your SEO efforts:

Bing and other search engines may treat keyword stuffing in meta tags as a spam signal
Competitors can see your meta keywords and learn about your keyword strategy
Adding and maintaining meta keywords takes time that could be more effective elsewhere

Which Search Engines Use Meta Keywords?

Below is a summary of how popular search engines treat meta keywords:

Meta Keywords Outside of SEO

Meta keywords have applications outside of SEO because other systems can use this metadata to better understand page content.

For example, a website’s internal search function might use meta keywords to match results. And some ad networks can use meta keywords to trigger related ads.

However, we recommend avoiding meta tag keywords for other applications.

Alternative tagging systems often provide better results and pose less risk to SEO.

Optimize for SEO Keywords the Right Way

The meta keywords tag can do more harm than good, but there are productive ways to use your target keywords in SEO.

Keywords make a ranking impact in search engines when they appear in locations like the following:

Title tag: The HTML page title that can appear in search results
Heading tags: HTML tags for the on-page heading and subheadings
Body content: The written paragraphs on your page
Alt text: HTML image descriptions for SEO and accessibility
Anchor text: Clickable text that can inform search engines and users about the linked page

Use Semrush’s On Page SEO Checker to evaluate keyword usage.

The tool checks whether your keywords appear in important locations and flags if you’re using keywords too often.