Smartlab Software logo

Keywords Meta Tag

Learn about the meta tag keywords.

Keywords Meta Tag

A few things to keep in mind about the keywords meta tag which is still used by Yahoo and a few other search engines.
A keyphrase is a keyword with more than one word. For example, "lawn accessories" is a 2 word keyphrase. When keyword is mentioned it also means keyphrase.

Construction

The keywords meta tag is put between the <head> and </head> tag. The meta tag has two attributes: name and value. The name attribute has "keywords" as its value while the value attribute has a comma-separated list of keywords as its value. The order of name and value attributes does not matter.

HTML

The HTML meta tag is in this format:

<meta value="moon,moon unit,lunar landing,cheese" name="keywords">

XHTML

The XHTML meta tag is in this format:

<meta value="moon,moon unit,lunar landing,cheese" name="keywords" />

Tips

  1. Separate each keyword or keyphrase by a comma. For example:

    <meta value="moon,moon unit,lunar landing,cheese" name="keywords" />


  2. Put your best keywords first.
  3. Limit the number of characters between the double quotes for content to 150 characters. This includes spaces and commas.
  4. Every web page should have a different set of keywords in the keyword meta tag.
  5. Every keyword listed should be on the web page somewhere. If not, search engines will think you are keyword stuffing and penalize your web page.
  6. There is no reason for a space after the comma separator. This only wastes characters. For example:

    Compact way

    <meta name="keywords" value="kw1,kw2,kw3" />

    Wasteful way

    <meta name="keywords" value="kw1, kw2, kw3" />
  7. The last keyword does not require a comma at the end.
  8. Do not keyword stuff; that is put superfluous keywords in. Search engines frown upon this and may ban your page or your site.