Comments on: Sorry, Yahoo, You DO Index The Meta Keywords Tag

By: everfluxx

everfluxx — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:09:55 +0000

LOL, it seems that Yahoo has finally removed my blog from this SERP.

By: JasonR

JasonR — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:16:20 +0000

Great!!! I just told a major client that they should forget about using the meta kwd tag cos none of the major SE’s use it any more. Not that they would they’re major SEO blog readers. Anyway, not going back to tell them that yahoo really dont know whether they use it or not, but not very professional of them!!

By: MyronRosmarin

MyronRosmarin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:04:15 +0000

Danny, you said it best “this hurts my head.” We attend conferences like SMX to get the most up-to-date and accurate information on all things SEO. We use that information to inform our clients what they should and shouldn’t be investing their valuable resources on. Mis-information by major search engines makes us ALL look bad … the SEOs, the speakers, the conference, and in fact the whole industry. In a week when our integrity was questioned in so ugly a manner as Derek Powazek did, we didn’t need this too. While the Meta Keywords field may have once been the most easily abused SEO trick in the book, it’s purpose for being has always made sense. We “tag” content all over the web, why not do that on our own web pages as well?? Search engines should be smart enough by now to know when that tag is being mis-used. Once again, the many are punished by the few. grrrr.

By: liveambitions

liveambitions — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:11:29 +0000

Why do we care if Yahoo indexes the contents of the meta tag…? It still doesn’t play a role in the SERPs. SERPs are what we care about.

In fact, Google does the same thing. Google may use your meta tag description in the SERPs, but it does not weigh into the rankings.

By: bwhalley

bwhalley — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:34:46 +0000

Maybe they meant that they still index it for content, but do not consider it for ranking order purposes?

By: Adam Audette

Adam Audette — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:42:35 +0000

My take is that Yahoo’s algorithm is broken, and/or no one even understands it anymore. Which is probably okay, since Bing will soon be taking it over anyway.

The meta keyword is dead! Long live the meta keyword!

By: everfluxx

everfluxx — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:22:00 +0000

OK. So, if the simple occurrence of a search term in the meta keywords tag content is the weakest of ranking signals for Yahoo, how come my blog home page ranks #1 for the unique string a6l0j8f6jg9l30s12ew6nun9kr21qxe0, when there are at least two other indexed pages with the same string appearing in the document body? :)

By: Andy Atkins-Krüger

Andy Atkins-Krüger — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:57:29 +0000

Just to add to the thread – we ran the same test on WebCertain.com – no results for Google – Yahoo pops up clear as you like.

By: Maarten Berge

Maarten Berge — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:01:44 +0000

I have also run a keyword test on http://www.iprospect.no/soekemotoroptimalisering-seo since the 27th of July. Look for the last keyword in the meta keywords tag and do a search for it on Yahoo! The page will show up in the result so yes Yahoo! still indexes the keywords tag. I agree that it doesn’t carry much value. I did stuff in som real keywords on this page too but did not see any change in ranking in the Yahoo! index when searching those keywords. I have been monitoring this page every other day before and after.

By: BenjArriola

BenjArriola — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 06:32:37 +0000

I was sitting in the audience when they said that, with doubts also I was testing it out on an old site we have always tested meta tags on which we always knew meta keywords was only for Yahoo. Wifi was not cooperating that time and I was checking everything on my cellphone and our test site that used to appear for yahoo was not appearing and told myself wow it’s true. Looks like I need to test further again. Maybe Yahoo has some delay in reading a page and analyzing before the full algorithm kicks in.