Let it be settled once and for all. Google does not use the meta keywords tag when ranking page results.
Anyone involved in web development has had to answer questions now and then regarding what can be done to achieve good search engine ranking, and anyone who has seriously looked into the issue knows that Google keeps many of their methods secret, leaving us, the users, to figure it out by guessing and twisting their virtual arms to get answers. Many of the essential methods have already come to light as Google has voluntarily given advice they feel we ought to know. Incoming and outgoing links, relevant content, page titles, and well structured pages are the primary methods. But what about meta tags?
Well, Google has finally laid the keywords meta tag to rest by openly stating that they don’t use it. This should not come as a big surprise to anyone following SEO techniques. A meta tag filled up with spam words goes against everything Google’s philosophy stands for. It is far too easy to fill up this tag with whatever information you want and it was (and still is) the primary target of old-fashioned keyword stuffing methods. Any time something on a website is invisible to the visitors, it is probably either considered black hat or ignored as irrelevant by Google. In the same article, Google explains that it doesn’t really use the description meta tag for ranking either, only for page listings (something users will see if they visit your site from Google).
It is still up in the air if other search engines will use keywords. Many probably do, so it is worth adding a few for the sake of completeness, but the next time a sell prescribed SEO ‘expert’ tells you that keywords are important, you’ll know better. Nothing beats incoming links and page content, and nothing ever will.