Title or keywords

I see a new trend those days. People don't write any META tags and instead rely in the title + the content. It seems like google knows that SEO people write meta tags so google gives those sites bad rankings.

 

When google indexes new pages it normally uses the meta description tag as the description of your page in the serps.

If you have not added this tag it has to figure out a description from your content and this will not work as well to attract visitors.

The meta tags may not help your ranking but they will attract clicks if well written.

 

As they as standard for html design, it would be very unlikely for a search engine to actually punish you for having it there.

 

Complete BS.

Are you guys testing things before writing things on a SEO forum for all noobs to read?

The meta desc is vital for the SERPs as a call to action to click. It shows when there is A. no snippet to take from the content and B. no DMOZ desc to take.
The meta KW tag will not hurt your ranking if it is written properly. It will actually help! Yes! Very little but it helps - and that is fully confirmed with recent testing and evidence.

 

Meta tags will not hurt serps and may help serps in some se's. Page title effectiveness as a marketing tool is a totally separate topic.