Today Google officially announced that the meta keywords tag is 100% unused. Again. According to WikiPedia, Google Research Director Monika Henziger stated it was essentially unused way back in 2002 (though to be fair, other engines may have given it some value, so we all continued to use it, and many still do as an "it doesn't hurt" move).
While this isn't really news to anyone who has been working in search for any length of time, it does provide a further indication to the evolution of search. It's moved beyond on-page edits. Way beyond on-page edits. Yet to this day, when describing search to friends, clients, or colleagues, I'll occasionally hear things like, "Oh, you mean you tweak the tags and stuff?"
Granted, that's still a part of our search toolkit, but it's a very small part at this point. In fact, the whole concept of driving people to one specific website is slowly starting to lose importance depending on what your goals are. Sometimes the goal is to be findable, and the specific touchpoint through which a consumer interacts with you or your brand is of lesser concern...as long as it's a positive result of course.
//img via Noah Sussman
Leave a comment