Are keywords dead?

Back in March, we asked this question.  Most of you thought if they weren't dead, they were probably on life support.  Here's what Google had to say recently -

Google doesn't use the "keywords" meta tag in our web search ranking.

What does this mean? Should we eliminate keywords?  There are those who say save the space, don't include them.  Google acknowledges keywords neither help or hurt you at this point (your not penalized for having them), and there are some other sites that still look at them.  Further, Google hasn't ruled out that it may revisit using them in the future. 

Bottom line it's the content that makes the difference.  If you want to have your site show up in Google, there will be need to be some keyword density in your text.

Are keywords dead?

I wouldn't say they are dead. I like what Scott said. "They're not feeling well". Content is key when engineered properly for search engine optimization. Keeping in mind your title and descriptions in both the code and content do play a major role in your search engine optimization. Izzy Macaluso

Keywords are not dead, but content is far more crucial in this ever-changing world of the search engine game. If you are delivering good content to your target market, no search algorithm can afford to ignore you!! Sanjay Mehta

Meta tags are not 100% dead, but have very little weighting- for now. I suspect this was in response to keyword stuffing/abuse & the fact that they are not visible to the user and therefore not part of the user experience. IMHO SEO is about 3 things- in order:

1. Content- drives SERP & volume- still king.
2. Linking- drives popularity, although more challenging now with global "no-follows" on many social sites (i.e. flickr)
3. Site Architecture- drives accessibility. Building a well formatted, 'bot friendly' site Marco Bailetti