My page by page keywords and titles/ meta decription follow a format of

golf, magazine, golf magazine, golf course, golf equipment, golf shop, golf holiday, course, courses, equipment, shop, holiday, holidays, national, club, golfer, national club golfer, {keywords}

1. Where {keywords} = "Golf competitions" "Golf articles" etc etc depending upon the page you are in.

I am looking at reducing all this to something along the lines of

1. Golf Magazine. National Club Golfer - {keywords}.

Would this effect my google index should I choose to reduce all these keywords.

Cheers
Ibbo

My short answer: "if you do it right, for the better".

The problem with the setup that you're describing now is that you simply stuff keywords wherever they go. Focus on 1, maybe 2 for the title tag and description tag for each page (rather than all for all as you seem to be doing now.)

As far as your title tag goes, I'd remove either the National Club Golfer or Golf Magazine. A good title tag should be 7-12 words (not counting stop words) and that already puts you at 5.

Adam,

Thanks for that. I have reduced it.

Cheers
ibbo

Not sure why you want to reduce the number of keywords for your site. Your titles for each page should not repeat the home page keywords but contain only the keyword for that page. Otherwise, Google is likely to see the pages as being very similar and send these pages to it's supplemental index.

Well if you reduce it, then it would be much better and remember that a well written and optimized Title and Description tag is the key to success.

Akash

I have had my sales and editorial team on the case and we have re-wrote the titles and keywords for each seperate page.

I.E the home page list various golf related jargon :
TITLE => National Club Golfer - The UK's greatest golf magazine
KEYWORDS => golf magazine,NCG,golf competitions,golf articles,golf search,golf subscriptions,golf equipment,golf instruction,golf reviews,golf juniors,golf seniors,golf forums,golf forum,golf prizes,win,golf,golfing,lady golfer,lady golfers,ladies golf,online competitions,prize draws,win online,enter,golf rss feeds,golf news,golf discount,clubs ,golf courses,national club golfer,poll

while the competitions page lists golf competition related keywords :
TITLE => Golf Competitions
KEYWORDS => Golf competitions,golf competition,online competitions,prize draws,win online,enter,golf rss feeds,golf prizes,win,prizes,competitions,free competitions,free

My description throughout is :
The UK's greatest golf magazine for golf experts and amateurs alike. Great competitions, golf course searches and news, golf holiday information, equipment reviews and much, much more.

I think I am on the right track, BUT been a developer having to cross into design (tight arse boss wont get me a designer) I am probably wrong.

Cheers for all your input though MORE of the same welcome

Ibbo

well keywords are now no longer necessary.

Akash

Originally Posted by vistadivine.com

well keywords are now no longer necessary.

NO way is this true?.

ibbo

Meta keywords carry very little (if any) weight these days. It doesn't hurt to include them but they won't give you a tremendous boost.

So are we talking about the title and backlinks as the focus of our efforts?

ibbo

It depends how deep you want to get into seo, but <title>, and anchor text (and volume) of backlinks are up there at the top.

There's definitely more to seo than title and backlinks, but those are two very important factors. Your meta description tag is still useful since it will sometimes show under your link in search results. Think of it more as something to convince people to click on the link though than something to boost where you rank. I would include your main keyword or two for the page in the meta description.

There's nothing wrong with using a meta keyword tag, but don't expect it to make any difference. It might help with very uncompetitive keywords. Again that's might help. Many SEO's don't use them at all. I've never bothered to put them on my site, since the benefit didn't seem worth even the few minutes it would take to add them.

If you do add them and it is ok to have them I would spend a minute or so at most on them. Maybe add a few common mispellings of your keywords. I would keep the number of keywords you add in the tag to a minimum too. Maybe 5 or 6.

But in the end meta keywords aren't going to make much difference to where you rank. They're just too easy to spam so not much weight can be given to them.

yes that is what really matters.

Akash