Q: Does this mean that Google will always ignore the keywords meta tag?
A: It’s possible that Google could use this information in the future, but it’s unlikely. Google has ignored the keywords meta tag for years and currently we see no need to change that policy.

These were rumours a year ago, and SEO experts had different versions of the truth. The Google giant search engine ignores keywords. Simple as that.

With an official statement, I’d better move on and delete all keywords meta tags from my sites. It’ll definitely save a few bytes per visitor.

The official example from Google is:

Suppose you have two website owners, Alice and Bob. Alice runs a company called AliceCo and Bob runs BobCo. One day while looking at Bob’s site, Alice notices that Bob has copied some of the words that she uses in her “keywords” meta tag. Even more interesting, Bob has added the words “AliceCo” to his “keywords” meta tag. Should Alice be concerned?

Well, that’s great. No more stealing keywords and ranking for them. I used to do this NOT with keywords but with related phrases inside my pages. The relatedness could go further depending on the scope of the article.

Should I care about other search engines? No. I’ve heard they played along.

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