Meta keywords in WordPress: how to check, how to remove, and what to fill in instead

You do not need to add meta keywords in WordPress. Google published a post titled Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking in September 2009, and the tag does not appear in Google's current list of meta tags and attributes that Google supports, read on 10 October 2026. If your theme or an old plugin still outputs one, the useful action is to remove it and spend the time on the fields that do affect how your pages appear: the title, the meta description, the slug, the headings and your internal links.

This page shows how to check whether your site is still emitting the tag, how to remove it safely in WordPress, and what to fill in instead, field by field.

Check what your site actually outputs

Open any page, view the source, and search for the string name="keywords". Or run one command and read the answer:

curl -s https://example.com/your-page/ | grep -i 'name="keywords"'

Three outcomes. Nothing comes back, which is the normal state for a current WordPress install with a modern SEO plugin, and there is nothing to do. A tag comes back with a list of phrases, which means a theme file, a legacy plugin or a stored custom field is writing it. Or a tag comes back empty, which is harmless and still worth tidying.

Where the tag usually comes from

• The theme's header file. Older commercial themes printed a keywords tag built from the post's tags. Look in the theme for header.php or a head hook, and search for keywords.
• A legacy SEO plugin. Plugins written in the era when the tag was in fashion added a field per post and printed its contents. Current major plugins either omit the field or leave it off by default.
• Stored post meta from a plugin you removed. The values stay in the database after the plugin goes, and a new plugin occasionally picks them up.
• A page builder's SEO panel. Some builders carry their own head settings separate from your SEO plugin, and two sources of head tags is worth resolving on its own merits.

Removing it safely

Take a backup first, then work in this order. If an SEO plugin has a keywords setting, switch it off there, because that is the reversible fix. If the tag comes from the theme, make the edit in a child theme or a code snippet rather than in the parent theme, so your next theme update does not undo it or break the site. If old values sit in post meta, delete them with a maintenance plugin that can list and remove a named meta key, and check the count before you delete. After each step, rerun the check above on three different page types: a post, a page and an archive.

One thing not to do: leave the tag in place and stuff it with phrases on the theory that it might help somewhere. It gives a competitor a tidy list of every term you are targeting, which is the only measurable effect it reliably has.

What goes in the head instead

Tag	What it does	Where to set it in WordPress
title element	The clickable line in search results, and a strong description of the page's subject	Your SEO plugin's title template, overridden per post where it matters
meta description	Offered as the snippet under the title. It shapes the click, not the ranking	Per post field in your SEO plugin, written for the reader
robots meta	Controls indexing and snippet behaviour, with values Google documents such as noindex and max-snippet	Plugin settings for archives, and per post for thin pages
canonical link	States the preferred URL when several resolve to the same content	Set automatically by major plugins, worth checking on paginated and filtered URLs
Open Graph and card tags	Title, description and image when the page is shared	Plugin social settings, plus a default share image
viewport	Mobile rendering	The theme, already present in any current theme
Structured data	Helps Google understand entities and can enable result features	Your SEO plugin's schema settings, or a dedicated plugin

The WordPress fields that are worth your afternoon

1. One clear title per page, written for a person scanning results, with the distinctive words first.
2. A slug that reads as the subject, short, lowercase, and left alone after publication unless you set up a redirect.
3. A meta description per important page, because a written one usually reads better than an automatic extract.
4. One heading structure: a single page title as the main heading, then sections in order.
5. Internal links from the text, using the words a reader would recognise, which is how WordPress sites spread authority between posts.
6. Decisions about tag and category archives, since WordPress generates a lot of them and most sites want only the useful ones indexed.
7. Images with real file names and alt text, compressed before upload.

What about Bing and other engines?

Bing's webmaster team wrote in 2014 that it treats the keywords meta tag as a signal of possible spam rather than as a ranking input, so stuffing it carries risk without upside. Some smaller engines and internal site search tools do read it, which is the one legitimate case for keeping it: if your own on site search, a documentation system or an intranet index uses the field, keep it populated accurately for that system and treat it as internal metadata rather than as search optimisation.

This page covers the keywords meta tag in WordPress and what to use instead. For the wider WordPress setup, including the index bloat that archives create and how to choose a plugin, read WordPress SEO. For structured data, read schema plugins for WordPress.

What people ask about meta keywords in WordPress

Do meta keywords still work in 2026?

Not for Google ranking. Google said in 2009 that it does not use the tag in web ranking, and the tag is absent from its current list of supported meta tags. Your title, description, headings and links are where the same effort pays.

Should I remove the meta keywords tag from WordPress?

Yes, tidy it away. Switch it off in your plugin if that is the source, edit a child theme if the theme prints it, and remove leftover post meta from plugins you no longer use.

Does the keywords tag harm my site?

The direct effect is that it publishes your target terms for anyone to read, and Bing has described it as a possible spam signal. Removing it is quick and there is no reason to keep it for Google.

Which plugin should I use for meta tags in WordPress?

Any of the established SEO plugins will set titles, descriptions, robots directives, canonicals and social tags properly. Choose one, and make sure only one plugin is writing head tags.

Do post tags in WordPress act as meta keywords?

No. WordPress tags create archive pages for readers. They are a navigation and taxonomy feature, and whether those archives should be indexed is a separate decision.

What is the quickest check that my head section is right?

View the source of your three main page types and confirm one title, one meta description, one canonical, the robots directive you intended, and no duplicate or empty tags.

The description that gets read back to a buyer

There is a newer reason to care about how your pages describe themselves. When somebody asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Claude who to use in your category, or reads Google's AI Overview, the answer is assembled from pages, profiles and reviews rather than from a single ranking position, and what a page plainly says about itself in its first paragraph travels further than any tag in the head ever did.

So it is worth seeing what those answers say about your site and which sources they cite. Ask the question a buyer would ask, keep your own name out of the prompt so the answer comes back clean, and read the citations. AI Knows Us measures those answers and the sources behind them.