The meta keywords tag is an HTML tag, <meta name="keywords" content="...">, where webmasters used to list a page's target keywords. Google confirmed in 2009 that it plays no role in ranking, and its current documentation still doesn't use it in 2026.
Why Google stopped using the meta keywords tag back in 2009, what Bing actually does with it today, and whether there's any legitimate reason left to keep filling it in on a new site.
The switch is still there; the cable is cut
What the meta keywords tag means
The meta keywords tag is an HTML tag placed inside a document's <head>, written as <meta name="keywords" content="term1, term2, term3">. In the late nineties, it let a webmaster declare outright which terms a page was about, at a time when search engines had little ability to parse visible text on their own. Listing enough of the right terms there translated directly into a real ranking advantage.
It's often confused with two other <head> tags that do very different jobs. The meta description is the summary that shows up under the title in a search result, written to earn the click, not to declare a topic. The meta title is what appears in the browser tab and as the blue link in results, and it remains one of the elements Google actually reads to work out what a page is about.
That's the real dividing line: the meta description and the meta title still do real work in 2026. The meta keywords tag doesn't.
Meta keywords versus meta description and meta title
All three tags live in the same part of the code, the document's <head>, which is exactly why they get mixed up. What they do, and how much weight they carry for ranking today, are two entirely different things.
Title shown in the browser tab and the result link
Yes, one of the signals Google actually reads
The common mistake is treating all three as equally important just because they share the same corner of the code. Spending time on meta keywords while neglecting the meta title means putting effort where it earns nothing and skimping where it actually counts.
How it works
It helps to separate three distinct processes to see what really happens with this tag, an angle straight out of technical SEO. Crawling and indexing come first: Googlebot does read the content of the meta keywords tag, the same way it reads any other element in the <head>. Information retrieval comes next: when processing a query, Google decides which documents even qualify based on visible content, not on whatever the tag declares. Ranking comes last: once the candidate documents are chosen, their order never depends on the terms listed there.
Google confirmed this publicly in September 2009, on its official blog for webmasters, after years in which many sites stuffed the field with dozens of terms unrelated to the actual content, hoping to game that order. Current Google Search Central documentation still lists meta keywords among the unsupported tags, with no effect on indexing or ranking at all. Anyone who wants to check how Google is actually indexing a page has a far better tool than staring at this tag: Google Search Console.
Bing took a somewhat different path. In 2011, a member of the Bing Webmaster team confirmed the tag's content does get read, but as just one signal among roughly a thousand, carrying minimal weight, with an explicit warning attached: filling it with terms absent from the rest of the page could read as spam. No more recent public statement from Bing has contradicted that position.
Why it matters today
For Google, the short answer is that it doesn't. Maintaining this tag or leaving it blank changes neither indexing nor the order of results. But the question has more nuance than a flat "doesn't matter" suggests.
The first is a risk most people forget: anyone can see the tag's content just by viewing a page's source code, so filling it with the terms you're competing on hands them straight to your competitors. Unlike a robots.txt file, which genuinely controls what a crawler fetches, this tag hands nobody any real control. It just puts what's already in the source code on display.
The second nuance is historical: piling on terms unrelated to the content was one of the most common black hat SEO tactics of the late nineties, and that history is exactly why Bing still treats the tag with suspicion rather than as an opportunity.
The third nuance is that the tag isn't always pure leftover: some content management systems still use that field to power the site's own internal search, a function that has nothing to do with ranking on Google or Bing.
Best practices
Don't spend time filling in the meta keywords tag with Google or Bing in mind: that effort changes nothing about ranking on either one.
If your CMS still generates it automatically, check whether the site's own internal search actually uses it before you empty it out.
Put that time into on-page SEO work that actually matters, like the meta title, the meta description, or heading structure.
If you keep the tag out of habit, never include competitor brand names or terms that don't appear anywhere in the page's visible content.
Check your pages' source code: if the tag hands your keyword strategy to competitors, removing it outright is the simpler call.
Don't confuse this tag with the meta title or the meta description: each does a different job, and only two of the three still carry any weight.
Common mistakes
Assuming that stuffing more terms into the meta keywords tag improves Google rankings, something that hasn't been true since 2009.
Assuming that because Google ignores meta keywords, it ignores the rest of the head too; the canonical tag or the meta title, for instance, remain decisive.
Piling on dozens of terms unrelated to the page's actual content, the exact practice that earned Bing's distrust of this tag in the first place.
Leaving an active campaign's target keywords sitting in plain view in the source code, visible to any competitor who bothers to look.
Copying the same keyword list across every page on a site, an extra spam signal for any engine that still parses the tag.
Manuel Riveiro RodriguezCEO & Digital Strategist
A technical audit covers this and everything else in one pass.
Does the meta keywords tag still do anything on Google?
Nothing at all. Google confirmed this publicly in 2009, and its current documentation still lists this tag among those with no effect on indexing or ranking. Filling it in, leaving it blank, or removing it outright changes nothing about where a page shows up in results.
Does Bing use it for ranking?
Not as a factor that improves ranking. Bing confirmed back in 2011 that it reads the tag's content, but mainly as a spam signal: if it contains terms absent from the page's real content, that can work against a site rather than help it rank.
Is there any reason to keep maintaining it?
For most sites, no. The one reasonable exception is a content management system that uses that field to power its own internal search function, a use case that has nothing whatsoever to do with ranking on Google or Bing. Worth a quick check in the backend before deleting it.
Can having the meta keywords tag hurt my site?
Not simply by existing. The risk shows up once it exposes your target keywords to competitors through the source code, or once Bing spots terms in it that don't match your actual content and reads that mismatch as a spam signal instead.
What's the difference between meta keywords and meta description?
The meta description is the summary shown under the title in search results, and it still shapes whether someone actually clicks through. Meta keywords was just a plain list of terms, and no search engine that matters still uses it for ranking.
