Professional SEOs have long suspected that Google stopped factoring content from the Keywords Meta tag many years ago. However, there has never been any official statement or evidence from Google that this is the case…until now.
Matt Cutts couldn’t state it any more clearly. When asked if Google uses the Keywords Meta Tag in calculating their search ranking results, his answer is “basically, not at all.” Cutts made his statement and provided an explanation why in the Google Webmaster Central video Google Does Not Use The Keywords Meta Tag In Web Ranking.
Of course, this news is old hat for most of us, but Matt makes some additional statements of interest in the video as well, particularly regarding the Meta Description tag. While the content in the Description Meta Tag also is not a ranking factor, Cutts does state that this element still plays an important role in the SERPs.
At this point, Cutts explains that Google does use the information from a website’s Meta Description in the snippet that appears with a SERP listing. For this reason, it is recommended that webmasters continue to write informative and persuasive Meta Descriptions. This is something else that SEOs have long suspected and been aware of, but it is nice to hear an official validation to support the claim.
