The meta keywords tags were initially used to help search engines support their technology. The idea was that a human being knows what keywords are relevant for a page more than software. However, the tags quickly gained a sordid reputation because they are susceptible to abuse. To get a high ranking in search results, marketers have succumbed to the temptation of repeating their keywords many times in a meta tag and also to including popular keywords that have nothing to do with the site’s raison d’être.

This upsets the nice folks at the search engines and they now compare the words in the meta tag to the words in the body text and penalize the site if there is wide discrepancy.

This abuse is a shame because meta keyword tags really did have an important function. Used correctly, they help a search engine or search directory understand what a Web page is all about. They were especially useful in cases where the actual meanings of the keywords used on a Web may be confused--"bed" as in "furniture" rather than "bed" as in "flower bed." Rather than repeat "flower bed" on the page, it can be used in the meta keyword tag. It is for this reason that Inktomi (the engine that powers MSN search), still uses the meta keywords tag.

Like their cousins the meta description tag, meta keyword tags are placed in the HTML header of a Web page’s source code. They are not seen on the actual Web page. To view one, simply go to a site and at the "view" drop-down menu choose "source" or "page source," depending on your browser. Toward the top of the page you should see (if the site is using such a tag): <-META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="a list of keywords">.

When you compile your keyword list for meta tags, many of the same considerations apply as when determining your keywords for Web pages and paid links. But of course, you have more room for more keywords than on an actual page.

Several special questions arise. Should you include misspellings to attract people who might be good customers but bad spellers? Most experts say one word in a meta tag will have virtually no effect on a search-engine crawler so it seems unlikely that including a misspelling will help your results.

What about varied capitalization? Because people tend to type in words lowercase and because most search engines aren’t case sensitive, this should not be a major concern. Also, if you write "TENNIS Tennis tennis" in the meta tag, it might upset the search engine’s spam alert.

It may, however, be useful to include plurals, because people tend to type the plural of the word. Also, be aware that some search engines use "stemming," which allows them to search variations of a word such was "walk" and "walks" and "walking" without your having to type them in.