Should You Really Abandon the Meta Keywords Tag for SEO?

Official statement

Some webmasters/SEOs sometimes ask Google's officials questions from another era. For instance, Gary Illyes was asked on Twitter whether the search engine penalized websites that "stuffed" their meta keywords tag with keywords. Gary's response (somewhat ironic) was clear: "No. We clearly can't take everything as a negative relevance factor. Do you have a chicken? Negative factor. Do you like broccoli? Negative factor. Eggplants? Yuck!" In short, you can make a nice necklace with the meta keywords tag if you feel like it, but it has no impact (for nearly 20 years now!!) on SEO since Google doesn't read it and has never read it (except a long time ago and under very specific circumstances that are now completely obsolete)...

Source : Search Engine Roundtable

What you need to understand

Why Does the Meta Keywords Tag Keep Coming Up in SEO Discussions?

The meta keywords tag is a relic from the past that continues to puzzle some SEO professionals. This HTML tag was once used to indicate to search engines the main keywords of a page.

Gary Illyes from Google had to clarify once again that this tag has had no impact on SEO for nearly 20 years. The question raised even concerned a potential penalty for keyword stuffing in this tag, which demonstrates a persistent misunderstanding of how Google currently works.

What Is Google's Official Position on This Tag?

Google clearly states that it does not read the meta keywords tag and has never used it as a ranking factor in its modern algorithms. Gary Illyes' ironic response underscores the absurdity of thinking Google would penalize something it completely ignores.

This statement reaffirms an official position maintained since the 2000s. Google cannot penalize what it doesn't take into account in its indexing and ranking process.

What Are the Key Takeaways from This Clarification?

The meta keywords tag has not been read by Google for approximately 20 years
There is no penalty for keyword stuffing in this tag since it is completely ignored
This tag has no positive or negative impact on organic search rankings
Resources devoted to optimizing this tag are completely wasted
Other minor search engines could theoretically use it, but their impact is negligible

SEO Expert opinion

Is This Statement Consistent with Field Observations?

Absolutely. Empirical tests conducted by the SEO community for years confirm the complete absence of impact of the meta keywords tag on Google rankings. No correlation has ever been observed between the presence or optimization of this tag and SEO performance.

This consistency between official statements and practical observations is reassuring. It demonstrates that on this specific point, Google communicates in a transparent and reliable manner with SEO professionals.

Why Do Some CMS and SEO Tools Still Offer This Tag?

Many content management systems and SEO plugins still include a field for the meta keywords tag due to historical compatibility or simple technological inertia. Unfortunately, this perpetuates confusion among beginners.

Some tools maintain this functionality for compatibility with other minority search engines (Yandex, Baidu in certain contexts) or internal site search engines. But for Google, which represents the majority of organic traffic, it's completely useless.

Warning: Don't confuse the meta keywords tag with other important meta tags like the meta description, title, or Open Graph tags. These latter ones have a real impact on SEO and display in search results.

Should You Remove This Tag If It Already Exists on a Site?

Removing or keeping it has absolutely no impact on your Google rankings. However, removing it offers a technical advantage: it slightly lightens the HTML code and avoids unnecessarily transmitting information about your keyword strategy to your competitors.

From a code maintenance and cleanliness perspective, it's preferable to remove it during a redesign or technical audit. But it's clearly not a priority if other more impactful optimizations remain to be performed.

Practical impact and recommendations

What Should You Concretely Do with the Meta Keywords Tag?

The recommendation is simple: spend no time optimizing, filling, or even thinking about this tag for Google. Your energy should focus on factors that have a real impact on search rankings.

If you're launching a new site, don't include this tag in your templates. If it already exists, you can leave it as is or remove it during a future technical update, but it's not urgent.

Which Meta Elements Should You Focus Your Efforts on Instead?

Focus on the elements that truly matter: the title tag (page title), meta description, Open Graph tags for social media, and structured markup (schema.org).

The page title remains the most important on-page factor, followed by the structure of Hn tags and content quality itself. The meta description, although not used for ranking, directly influences click-through rate from search results.

Remove meta keywords fields from your editorial processes and content creation forms
Disable or ignore meta keywords options in your plugins and CMS
Focus your optimization efforts on title tags and meta descriptions
Invest time in semantic markup (Hn) and quality content
Train your teams so they don't waste time on this obsolete tag
Reallocate the time saved toward content optimization, technical performance, or link building

How Do You Audit and Clean Your Site of These Obsolete Practices?

A comprehensive technical audit allows you to identify not only the presence of meta keywords tags, but also other obsolete SEO practices cluttering your code. A crawl of your site with tools like Screaming Frog will quickly reveal these elements.

Beyond this specific tag, it's recommended to regularly perform a cleanup of outdated SEO practices: artificial keyword density, anchor text over-optimization, cloaking techniques, etc.

In summary: The meta keywords tag has been completely ignored by Google for nearly 20 years. It deserves no optimization effort and can be removed without concern. Instead, focus your resources on ranking factors that have real impact: quality content, user experience, technical performance, and domain authority. These multiple optimizations and their orchestration can prove complex to implement effectively. To maximize your return on investment and avoid costly mistakes, guidance from a specialized SEO agency can help you prioritize high-impact actions and achieve measurable results more quickly.