SEARCHENGINES

Does Google Use The Meta Keywords Tag For Rankings? No It Does Not

Published

3 months ago

September 4, 2023

It has been a while since I covered the keyword meta tag and for some reason the topic has come up recently, so I decided to cover it again. In short, Google Search still does not use the keyword meta tag for ranking purposes.

Google does not look at the words in your keyword meta tag for search purposes. Adding, removing, spamming or excluding words or the meta tag completely will not matter for your rankings in Google Search.

Google said this back in 2009 and said it again last year in this video. Google also has it posted in its official documentation where it said, “The meta-keyword tag is not used by Google Search, and it has no effect on indexing and ranking at all.”

Google Search does not look at the words in your keyword meta tag at all.

Most recently, John Mueller from Google said in this video, “Just to be clear from the start, the answer is still no. We do not use the contents of the keyword meta tag in Google Search.” “And again, Google Search does not use the keywords meta tag,” he added.

Here is that video:

Then in 2012, Matt Cutts posted another video on the topic and said, “You shouldn’t spend any time on the meta keywords tag. We don’t use it.” He added, “And so a lot of webmasters just keyword stuff there. And so it’s really not all that helpful. So we don’t use meta keywords at all.”

Here is that video:

Then before that in 2009, Matt Cutts posted this video where he said “So we had an interesting question from someone who just asked me, “How much do you use the keyword or keywords meta tag in your main search results?” And the answer is, basically not at all.”

Here is that video:

Now Bing Search may use keywords meta tag still. You may have other uses for meta keywords, such as for internal search, for other content purposes. But for ranking purposes in Google Search, Google does not use it.

Here is a recent poll I posted asking SEOs if they use the keyword meta tag:

Do you still use meta keywords tags on pages you optimize?
rerunning a poll @bill_slawski ran a few years ago

— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) August 30, 2023

This was the poll from Bill, RIP, from a few years ago:

Do you still use meta keywords tags on pages you optimize?

— Bill Slawski ⚓ 🇺🇦 (@bill_slawski) May 29, 2020

Forum discussion at Twitter.

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Related Topics:Google Keywords Meta rankings searchengine TAG

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SEARCHENGINES

Google Hanukkah Decorations Are Live For 2023

Published

1 week ago

December 3, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Hanukkah (aka Chanukah) starts this coming Thursday night, December 7th. Google has added its Hanukkah decorations to the Google Search results interface to celebrate. Google does this every year and I expect to see the same rollout in the coming weeks for Christmas and Kawanzaa but for now, since Chanukah is in the coming days, we have the Hanukkah decorations live at Google Search.

Here is a screenshot of the Chanukah decorations as they look like on the mobile search results.

You can see it yourself by searching on Google for [chanukah], [hanukkah], but not yet [חֲנוּכָּה‎] or other spelling variations yet but it should soon. It looks better on mobile than it does on desktop results.

To see the past, the 2023 decorations, 2021 decorations, 2020 Chanukah decorations, 2019 Google holiday decorations, the 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010 and so on.

Happy Chanukah, everyone!

Forum discussion at X.

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SEARCHENGINES

Google Pay Accepted Icons In Google Search Results

Published

1 week ago

December 3, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Google seems to be testing a Google Pay Accepted label or icon in the Google search results. This label has the super G logo followed by the words “Pay accepted” words next to search result snippets that support Google Pay and notate such in their structured data.

This was first spotted by Khushal Bherwani who shared some screenshots of this on X – here is one:

Here are some more screenshots:

Here is test and without test window for same query. pic.twitter.com/n9cYWBOsro

— Khushal Bherwani (@b4k_khushal) October 20, 2023

Brodie Clark also posted some screenshots after on X:

In continuation from the test from October, Google is now testing out a new Google Pay label associated with organic results. Last month, Google was testing Pay Accepted text, with this month changing it to Pay encrypted checkout. More details: https://t.co/MvFNoPmMDR pic.twitter.com/WDVVc4RbTO

— SERPs Up 🌊 (@SERPalerts) November 30, 2023

I tried to replicate this but I came up short.

This is not the first time Google had similar icons like this in its search results.

Forum discussion at X.

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SEARCHENGINES

Google Discover Showing Older Content Since Follow Feature Arrived

Published

1 week ago

December 2, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Typically, Google Discover shows content that is less than a day old, but it can show content that is weeks, months, or even years old. However, typically, Google will show more recent content in the Discover feed. Well, that may have changed with the new Google follow feature.

Glenn Gabe, who is a very active Google Discover user, noticed that since the Follow feature rolled out, he has been seeing content that is weeks and months old way more often than before the follow feature rolled out. Glenn wrote on X that “this could also be playing a role. i.e. Google isn’t providing as much recent content, but instead, focusing on providing targeted content based on the topics you are following.”

It makes sense that if you follow a specific topic and if Google Discover only shows the most authoritative types of content, it might be hard for Google to find new content on that topic. So it does make sense that Google may show older content more often for that specific topic you follow.

Here are screenshots Glenn shared:

Google Discover Old Stories Follow