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