Should you really get rid of the meta keywords tag from your pages?

Why did Google abandon this tag?

The meta keywords tag was created in the 90s to help search engines understand the content of a page. At that time, algorithms were rudimentary and heavily relied on declarative metadata. The problem? This tag became the playground for spammers who stuffed hundreds of unrelated keywords that had nothing to do with the actual content.

Google therefore decided to completely ignore it, probably as early as the mid-2000s. Matt Cutts publicly confirmed this in 2009, and since then, all Google spokespersons have repeated the same message. The reason is simple: data that can be easily manipulated cannot serve as a reliable ranking signal.

Does this tag negatively impact if it remains present?

No, its mere presence does not penalize your site. Google ignores it, period. No penalties, no bonuses, just total algorithmic silence. Some CMS or plugins automatically add it, and as long as it does not contain any bizarre or spammy content visible elsewhere, it remains invisible to the algorithm.

The only theoretical risk concerns the revelation of your keyword strategy to competitors who may analyze your source code. If you list your target queries there, you offer them a free glimpse of your SEO roadmap. But let’s be honest: any content analysis tool reveals your semantic targets much more effectively.

Do other engines still utilize this tag?

Some niche or regional search engines still claim to take meta keywords into account, particularly Yandex or Baidu in certain configurations. Their technical documentation sometimes mentions this tag as a minor signal. However, the on-the-ground reality is murkier: no rigorous tests have demonstrated measurable impact on these platforms in recent years.

If your traffic comes 98% from Google, the calculation is straightforward. If you are targeting markets where these alternative engines account for 20-30% of traffic, the question is worth asking. But even in that case, the effort invested in this tag remains trivial compared to optimizing actual content, title tags, and internal linking.

• Google has completely ignored the meta keywords tag for at least 15 years
• Its presence does not penalize, nor is it useful for Google ranking
• It can reveal your semantic strategy to competitors analyzing your code
• A few minor engines claim to use it, without evidence of real impact
• The time spent filling it out is better invested in quality content

Is Google’s position consistent with on-the-ground observations?

Absolutely. No correlation has ever been measured between the presence, absence, or content of this tag and ranking in Google. A/B tests that remove the meta keywords from half of a website never show ranking variation. Crawls of thousands of top-ranking pages reveal that some have it and some do not, with no detectable pattern.

What’s interesting is that Google has maintained this consistent message for over a decade. Unlike other signals where official communication remains deliberately vague, the position here is clear and reiterated by all spokespersons. When Google wants to be clear, it knows how to be. This is one of the few topics where total transparency exists, likely because there is no competitive advantage to protect.

Are there specific cases where this tag could still be useful?

On the strict ranking front for Google, no. But in very specific contexts, it can have an internal organizational utility. Some teams use it to document the semantic targeting intentions of a page, as a memory aid for writers or to feed internal audit tools.

This is a diverted use that has nothing to do with SEO in the strictest sense. If your CMS allows creating custom fields that are invisible in the source code, that’s a better solution. Using a public HTML tag as an internal management tool remains shaky, especially if it reveals your editorial strategy to anyone inspecting your code.

Should you invest time in removing it from an existing site?

If it’s already present on thousands of pages, removing it will yield no measurable ranking gain. You can leave it as is without worry. However, if you are redesigning a site or migrating to a new CMS, it’s best to avoid re-implementing it. There’s no need to launch a specific technical project to track and eliminate it.

The only case where removal may be justified is if this tag contains legacy spam inherited from old black hat practices. For example, 200 stuffed keywords, including competing brands or adult content. Even if Google ignores it for ranking, a manual audit might see it as a signal of historical manipulation. But this is a rare scenario on serious sites.

What should you do if your CMS automatically generates this tag?

Many CMSs, WordPress plugins, or pre-made templates still include a meta keywords field by default. You can simply leave it empty. An empty tag or one containing only spaces will be ignored anyway. If the field is automatically filled from tags or categories, it remains without negative consequences.

If you really want to disable it, look in the SEO settings of your theme or plugin (Yoast, RankMath, All in One SEO). Most now offer an option to prevent this tag from being generated. This is a micro-optimization that takes 2 minutes, but don’t expect any measurable impact on your traffic curves.

What priorities should you focus on instead?

The time you could spend managing this tag should be redirected towards projects that have a real SEO impact. Title tags and meta descriptions deserve 100 times more attention: they directly influence the click-through rate in SERPs, which is a behavioral signal leveraged by Google. The Hn structure, internal linking, loading speed, and optimization of actual content are your true levers.

A good prioritization test: if an SEO task does not have a demonstrable impact on crawling, indexing, ranking, or CTR, it goes to the back of the backlog. The meta keywords fail on all four criteria. It does not facilitate crawling, does not improve indexing, does not influence ranking, and remains invisible in result snippets.

How can you quickly audit the status of this tag on your site?

A Screaming Frog or Oncrawl scan will give you the complete list of pages that have a meta keywords tag in just a few minutes. Export the corresponding column and analyze the percentage of affected pages. If it's 100% of the site, it’s probably an automatic generation by the CMS. If it’s sporadic, it may be legacy content.

You can also use a Google search with the operator inurl:yourdomain.com combined with a manual inspection of the source code on a sample of pages. But honestly, unless out of intellectual curiosity or a desire to clean the code for aesthetic reasons, this audit has no business value. Instead, invest that time in analyzing Core Web Vitals or keyword cannibalization.

• Do not fill out the meta keywords tag on new content
• Disable its automatic generation in your CMS settings if the option exists
• Do not launch a specific project to remove it from existing content unless there is spam
• Reallocate the saved time toward optimizing titles, descriptions, and Hn
• Focus your efforts on actual content, internal linking, and user experience
• If you target markets where Yandex or Baidu dominate, keep it just in case but without investing time on it