I was doing some research on meta keyword tags, that I though I would share.
Google ignores keywords placed in the meta tag – see Matt Cutt’s Google video with an explanation “Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking”
However its seems as though Yahoo take meta tag keywords into consideration, see link How to Improve the Position of Your Website in Yahoo! Search Results
<quote>Use a “keyword” metatag to list keywords for each page of your website. Use distinct lists of keywords that relate to each specific page on the site. Do not use one broad set of keywords for the entire site.</quote> (Last Updated: December 15, 2009).
Bottom line – its not going to hurt your website if you include <meta name=”keywords” content=” ” />
Couldn’t agree more. A few months ago when Google confirmed they don’t take meta description and keywords tags into consideration for rankings, SEO’s declared them useless.
I still recommend them to clients and advise taking 30 seconds to come up with 6-10 unique, relevant keywords for each page.
As you said, it can’t hurt. Even if it only helps a little with other search engines, every little bit counts.
Andrew, I’m glad you agree, it seems as though website owners and some SEO professionals only keep track of what Google suggest to improve website rankings and disregard other search engines.