Short answer: No. Google says the keywords meta tag isn’t used by Google Search and has no effect on indexing and ranking at all. Spend that effort on the title, the meta description and the text people read.
The meta tags Google reads, and the keywords tag
| Tag | Does Google use it? | What for |
|---|---|---|
description | Yes | Sometimes as the snippet in search results |
robots | Yes | Crawling and indexing rules; index, follow is the default |
viewport | Yes | A sign that the page is mobile friendly |
google- | Yes | Proving you own the site in Search Console |
keywords | No | Nothing: no effect on indexing or ranking |
From Google Search Central, “Meta tags and attributes that Google supports”, read November 3, 2026.
Why Google ignores the keywords tag
In the early days of search, the keywords tag was easy to stuff with irrelevant words that typical visitors never saw. Because it was abused so often, Google began ignoring it many years ago.
Google explained it in 2009 with an example: if a competitor copies the words in your keywords tag, even your company name, you don’t need to worry. Its web search disregards the tag completely.
The meta description, on the other hand, can become the snippet under your result, and our guide to meta descriptions and SEO titles covers how to write both.
Other code that Google ignores
Google ignores the meta tags it doesn’t support. It also detects the language of a page from its text, not from the lang attribute, and it no longer uses rel="next" and rel="prev" links.
For a site in two languages, the signal Google reads is hreflang. Our guide to hreflang shows how to set it.
How to clean up your meta tags
- Open the source of a page and look at the meta tags in the head.
- Write a meta description that sums up each page.
- Check that the robots tag says what you want; index, follow is the default and needs no tag.
- Keep the viewport tag on every page.
- Leave the keywords tag out, or remove it if your CMS adds it.
- Don’t count on the lang attribute or rel="next" and rel="prev" for Google.
- Check the result with the URL Inspection tool in Search Console.
What our own pages send
At 3:14 AM on November 3 we read the head of the 286 pages in our sitemap as a visitor. None of them sends a keywords meta tag.
All 286 send a description, a robots tag and a viewport tag, the three that Google supports. They also send the card tags that X reads for link previews, and one tag for Windows tiles, which Google ignores.
Before you publish a page
- There’s no keywords meta tag, or you know it does nothing.
- The page has its own meta description.
- The robots tag says what you want.
- The viewport tag is there.
- The head section is valid HTML.
- URL Inspection shows the tags you expect.
RememberGoogle ignores the keywords meta tag completely. Put your words in the title, the meta description and the text of the page, where people and Google read them.
If you want us to review the tags on your pages, see our technical SEO service.
Quick answers about the keywords meta tag
Does the keywords meta tag hurt my SEO?
Google says the tag has no effect on indexing and ranking at all, so in Google Search it neither helps nor hurts. Taking it out is a matter of tidy code, not rankings.
Can I add meta tags with JavaScript?
Google recommends avoiding JavaScript to inject or change meta tags whenever possible. If you must use it, test your implementation thoroughly, for example with the URL Inspection tool.
Which meta tags does Google use?
Description, robots and googlebot, notranslate, nopagereadaloud, google-site-verification, the charset and Content-Type tags, refresh, viewport and rating. Google ignores the meta tags it doesn’t support, and it reads them in HTML or XHTML style.
Does Google use the lang attribute?
No. Google detects the language of a page from its text, not from code annotations such as lang. To tell Google about each language version of a page, use hreflang.
Should I use a meta refresh to redirect?
Google recommends a server-side 301 redirect instead. A meta refresh sends visitors to a new URL after some time, but not all browsers support it and it can confuse people.
Sources
Read on November 3, 2026. Google Search Central: Meta tags and attributes that Google supports and Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking. Our own case: the meta tags of the pages in our sitemap, on November 3, 2026.