Hi Is this Tag important to Google. Cheers Possum.. P.S I just joined the digital point forums.. So hi everyone
Oh don't get me wrong bomberman, I still use it too - to remind myself of what keywords I'm targeting for that particular page (unfortunately this does have the side effect of letting my "competitors" know what keywords I'm targeting as well, but such is life).
Content is king and it will have all the keywords you need when it is relevant to your cause. Now with that being said I use keyword and all META info and killer content and it changed my revenue quickly. Tk
I still use keyword tags. Competitors can still check your Title and Description tags if they want to know what keywords/phrases you're targeting. I'm pretty sure Google reads the Keyword tags. I use them for keyphrase consistency throughout my websites. They will at least get the credit of regular body text.
Google does NOT read the keywords tag. It doesn't use them at all, due to people abusing them like a child locked away for days on end only to be dragged out and beaten when convenient (such as when I was growing up, to an extent).
How are you so sure Google doesn't read keyword tags? I have been studying SEO since 1997 and I've been around the block. I've seen no conclusive evidence that Google will completely ignore this tag. I truly believe that they will treat is as regular body text, nothing more, nothing less. I KNOW that it can't hurt you to use keyword tags, so there's no real point in leaving them out unless you're completely lazy. I love lazy SEOs, it just makes my job that much easier. I'd like to see a quote directly from Matt Cutts that states Google completely ignores keyword tags altogether.
Nothing from Matt Cutts (that I could find - at least text anyway), but it is common knowledge. http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2165061 http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2167891 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_tag#The_keywords_attribute
If you call a few other people posting this in forums and blogs common knowledge, you're sorely mistaken. If you haven't tested it first hand with over 30 websites or so, or you didn't get it directly from Matt Cutts or Rand then you shouldn't make such bold statements. I take the time to create unique Titles, Meta Descriptions and Meta Keyword tags for each and every page of my websites and my clients' websites when I want to rank for competitive terms/phrases (yes, even with dynamic websites containing 1000+ internal pages). I truly believe that keyword reiteration in Keywords Tags throughout the website can show consistency and actually help your website rank in the SERPs. Some of the best SEOs in the industry argue with me sometimes about things they've come to believe because the masses say or preach it, but I know of many occasions where my testing has proved otherwise. I keep most of that proprietary knowledge to myself for the sake of my company having a competitive edge, but Keyword Tags are hardly proprietary.
So you're saying that Danny Sullivan (who is one of the few people who really knows what the hell he's talking about) is irrelevant just because his name isn't Matt Cutts (another one of the few people who knows what he's talking about) or Rand Fishkin (who's out to make a buck at the end of the day and also specializes in a lot of speculative "SEO")?
I'm not a big Danny S fan personally. I have disagreed with a few points Rand has made in the past, but overall he provides the best environment for SEOs and is very involved in what matters. Speculate, theorize and thoroughly test with a large data set, then make claims. Otherwise make sure you're stating fact or use terms such as IMO, I beleive or my theory is that... Making bold un-proven statements and claiming them as fact proliferates all of the dis-information. Sorry, I don't want to come off as personally attacking you. It's hard to convey tone with text. I'm just trying to make a point, and I commend your effort to edjucate!