Depending on who you ask, some people will tell you that metadata keywords are essential to a website, and no design is complete without proper use.  Other web developers make it sound like metadata is an outdated concept, and that using metadata is a waste of time.

But what is metadata, and why is the debate over its use so contentious?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, metadata is a set of data that describes and gives information about other data.

That’s a very powerful and broad definition, but because it’s so encompassing, it’s not very helpful when trying to wrap our heads around the use of metadata in website design.  So I’m going to narrow down the definition a bit to make it more relevant to this discussion.

In effect, metadata is a form of online shorthand that describes your website.

If you think of your webpages as lending materials at a library, then the page’s metadata is the equivalent to its entry in the card catalog.  A well written card includes the format, the author, the date of publication, the subject matter, a brief summary, important keywords, where the book can be located, &c.  On the other hand, a card that stops after listing the name of the book won’t be very much help at all.

When you think of it this way, it would seem obvious that good metadata is essential.  And really, who wouldn’t want to write their own card catalogue entry?

So why do some web designers advocate against the use of metadata?

When designers first started putting metadata onto web pages, the various Search Engines assumed that anyone who bothered to provide information on their website would tell the truth - and therefore made metadata keywords one of the most important elements in their web search.

In an attempt to improve their rankings, several websites put in irrelevant or barely relevant keywords so that they would appear near the top of popular searches.

As a result, Google, and several of the other major search engines, switched their priorities, and made the importance of metadata keywords almost negligible.  Because the keywords were being used to attract rather than inform, they were deemed too unreliable for accurate searching.

So, Are Keywords Unimportant Now?

If anything, keywords are even more important now than ever.  However, in order to keep from being fooled again, the major Search Engines now focus on the (visible) written content of a website instead of the metadata.

This means that anything worth saying once is probably worth saying again.  This is especially true of slogans or phrases which people might already associate with your business or your product.

Well, If Google Isn’t Looking That Closely, I Can Ignore my Metadata, Right?

That remains a topic of debate.  Google may not take a close look at your metadata, but it will look at who is linking to you - and a number of influential directories do look at your metadata to see if you are describing yourself accurately.

Besides, coming up with keywords forces you to think about the purpose of a page, and can guide your hand when you decide which phrases should be repeated within the body of the text and where else the page should link.

In short, Metadata Keywords can be used for the original purpose of describing the page’s actual content.