What the meta keywords tag looks like
It sits in the head section of a page. For a dental clinic in Tashkent it might read: <meta name="keywords" content="dental implants, teeth whitening, Tashkent">. Nothing appears on the page itself, and nothing shows up in search results.
Early search engines did read it to work out what a page was about. Then site owners began stuffing it with hundreds of words, many of them unrelated, and the engines stopped trusting it. Old guides and technical-brief templates still list it, which is why the question keeps coming back.
How Google and Yandex treat it
Google has stated officially that it does not use the tag for ranking. Yandex's help pages have said the content may be taken into account, but the page text carries the real weight. In practice, specialists do not see a noticeable effect on positions in either system.
That matters in Uzbekistan, where many sites are searched in both Google and Yandex. One rule covers both: the tag is an optional detail, not a lever.
What to do with the meta keywords tag
Many CMS platforms and SEO plugins show a keywords field out of habit. You have three sensible options:
Do not spend hours choosing words for this tag across hundreds of product pages. That time is better used elsewhere. And if you remove the tag, do not expect rankings to move, because it was not doing anything measurable.
- Leave the field empty. The tag will be missing or blank, which is fine
- Switch off its output in the theme or plugin settings
- If a client insists, add the two or three main queries for the page, with no repeats
When the tag can hurt
The tag is not penalised on its own, but two situations are worth fixing:
The second point matters more than it seems. Say a seller on Uzum or OLX builds a site and spends weeks assembling a keyword list. Pasting it into the code hands that research to anyone who clicks View Source.
- A long list of phrases looks like spam and can be one sign of over-optimisation
- Page source is public, so a competitor can see exactly which queries you are targeting
How to check your own site
Open the source of any page and search for the word keywords. If the tag is there with dozens of phrases, it was probably left by a previous contractor, or a plugin builds it automatically from post tags. A crawler can show the tag's content for every page at once, which makes the scale easy to judge.
While the source is open, review the rest of the head: title, description, robots, canonical, viewport and Open Graph. These matter far more. Typical finds are the same description on every page and a noindex left over from development. Open Graph controls the preview when a link is shared in Telegram, so it supports marketing too.
Where keywords actually work now
What people once expected from the tag now happens through elements that users can see:
If you want one place to track page keywords, keep a semantics spreadsheet: page, main query, supporting groups. It is an internal document and does not belong in the site code.
- Title with the main query for the page
- H1 and subheadings that reflect the structure of the topic
- Copy that answers the visitor's question fully and specifically
- Description written for an appealing snippet
- Internal links with clear anchor text
- Structured data for products, services, and questions and answers
What to ask your SEO contractor
Agree up front that filling in keywords is not a deliverable and does not belong in the report. Ask to see verifiable things instead: which queries are assigned to each page, how they appear in headings and copy, and how the page looks in search results. If a report lists keywords tags as a major task, ask what else is being done to promote the site.
If you would like an outside view, talk to markdev. As part of SEO optimisation in Uzbekistan, we can review your head section, page structure and semantics and put together a clear list of fixes.
FAQ
Does the meta keywords tag affect Google rankings?
No. Google has said officially that it does not use the tag for ranking, so filling it in or leaving it out makes no difference.
Does Yandex use the meta keywords tag?
Yandex has said it may take the content into account, but page text matters far more, and specialists see no noticeable effect in practice.
Should I delete the tag from an existing site?
It is a safe cleanup, especially if the tag holds a long list or reveals your target queries. Remove it from the template or switch it off in the plugin.
Where should I keep a page's keywords?
In an internal semantics spreadsheet, not in the code. That keeps your research away from competitors and your pages clean.
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