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Does filling out HTML meta description/keyword tags matter for SEO?
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For 99.9% of people, the meta keywords tag is useless, and filling it out is a waste of time. You should only use it if you have a particular reason to do so, like using it for an internal keyword tagging system or an internal site search. Other meta tags like your title and meta description deserve more attention.
So the short answer is: yes, meta descriptions matter and are still important for SEO, but carefully crafting a 160 character meta tag for every page of your site may not matter as much as we once thought.
Meta tags are the first impression someone has of your page on a SERP. A good meta description will attract users to click through and visit your site. They ensure that search engines know what your content is about, so they'll be able to show the website in the appropriate results.
Meta tags are invisible tags that provide data about your page to search engines and website visitors. In short, they make it easier for search engines to determine what your content is about, and thus are vital for SEO.
This article has some info on it.
A quick summary for keywords is:
Google and Microsoft: No
Yahoo and Ask: Yes
Edit: As noted below, the meta description is used by Google to describe your site to potential visitors (although may not be used for ranking).
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