The PlanetRecruit Blog

Keywords are dead, long live keywords

Utilise keywords within your own site to create, categorise and organise a content framework.

It is true that Google no longer holds any weighting on a website’s keywords – a direct result of abuse by webmasters in a bid to superficially increase page rank. Since this time, webmasters have shunned the meta keyword from their sites, often removing them entirely or rehashing the same basic keywords. The latter practice does you no favours; it simply bloats your site unnecessarily.

Is the fate of the meta keyword really set on a grave 'til hell freezes over? I would suggest that it doesn’t have to be that way. Websites often incorporate tags and tag clouds on their site; initially they were a vain attempt to replace the meta keyword, and Google once again slammed the door shut on their SEOness. So why did the tags (and to a lesser extent, the tag cloud) hang around?

Be with you in an instant

Google’s newest product Google Instant has put many people into a bit of a whirl. Will it be another step change in the way we use the web? Opinions are split.

Early indications are that it won’t affect SEO keyword rankings. I’ve just carried out the same search with instant switched on, off and logged out. All three searches have resulted in the same search results. However, it is worth noting that I didn’t even look at the screen as I typed my query into Google. So from a user perspective, it could have little impact – I bet the majority of users tend to concentrate on typing rather than the screen (unless you are a skilled PA who touch types).