Does Google actually border META tags keywords when matching search results for users? I heard that owing to the abuse of META tags, most search engines don't count them as anything useful. Is that true?
Yup, they do actually. You can set a meta keyword for your site. Anyway only the relevent meta keyword count by Google spidered.
I still insist the title and description tags are important. I've had some good results on less competitive SERPS only by manipulating title tags. Putting the same keywords in your description and keyword metas seem to help the results also. The description meta is also important as this can show as your description snippet in the SERPS so it helps if you make it a bit eyecatching, use your keyword here also as it gets bolded out.
Yes title and description are useful and should be properlly filled. Keywords meta tags are almost useless, but it doesn't hurt to have them right.
First... Title is not a meta tag. And yes, title is very important. I agree, it is a very good idea to use the descrption tag and craft it carefully so that when it is used as the search text it become a "hook" for the searcher. The keywords tags is also a good idea especially since it can be used for onsite search. However, Google does not use it at all when ranking sites. I participated in testing the meta description as an influencing factor and it was determined, conclusively, that when it comes to Google it is not a ranking factor. Dave
The description meta-tag is sometimes displayed when your website is shown in the search results. Example: Look at kelkoo description..