One area of optimisation that we tend to ignore is the Meta Keyword tag. For many this is still something they spend a lot of time on but really, it isn’t worth it. The reason is SPAM. Google hasn’t factored in the keywords tag for a decade.
If you are still in doubt, we received this communication from Google today:
Q: Why doesn’t Google use the keywords meta tag?
A: About a decade ago, search engines judged pages only on the content of web pages, not any so-called “off-page” factors such as the links pointing to a web page. In those days, keyword meta tags quickly became an area where someone could stuff often-irrelevant keywords without typical visitors ever seeing those keywords. Because the keywords meta tag was so often abused, many years ago Google began disregarding the keywords meta tag.
So there you have it. Google doesn’t use them, so when looking at on page optimisation factors, focus more of your time on good titles and useful descriptions that will boost your click through rates in search results.