How many keywords are ideal for the META keywords tag?

html seo meta-tags
Herman Schaaf picture Herman Schaaf · Sep 28, 2010 · Viewed 43.9k times · Source

The answers to a previous question pointed out that the keywords meta tag in HTML is used by some search engines, such as Yahoo! and Ask.

Now, I know not many of us have direct knowledge of the algorithms behind different search engines, but in your experience, does the number and order of keywords have any effect? Is it better to have fewer or more keywords, and are the keywords that are listed first given higher priority?

Answer

CristiC picture CristiC · Sep 28, 2010

There is no official limit on the number of meta keywords you can have.

Each search engine sets their own rules. However, it is a good practice to have less than 10% of the total words of a page. If for example your page has 300 words it is better to have maximum 30 words in your meta keyword tag. Otherwise could be considered overstuffing.

The only real use is to remind you of the keywords and keyphrases you have optimized for on that page.

Have also in mind that if you place a large number of keywords just for some search engines to see, you could end up ranking less in the others.

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