First let me explain about the keywords meta tag. I am certain that for Yahoo there was some value associated with this tag up to a year ago. I did not run any tests to see if that is still valid. But I saw this tutorial of Yahoo
Adding META Tags to Store Editor pages - Yahoo! Small Business Help and seems like it was published in January 2008
Internet Archive Wayback Machine
If you want to be sure, try to test that out yourself.
My next question is: How about other small search engines beside the big three? In case they weight that tag, why shouldn't I use it?
What about the web sites internal search scripts? There are many scripts out there that you can use for a site search function, which are supported by that tag.
Now Google: I know that they will only look to see if words you searched appear in the body area of a document. But won't they look in the meta keywords tag for matching words? To check if you are potential spammer? Can anyone tell for sure that Google does not look at the meta keywords with their
PhraseRank Algorithm?
As I mentioned in my original post:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Webnauts
Make sure that the keywords appear at least once in your content (body). If not, the keyword will be considered as irrelevant spam. Avoid repetitions as some search engines can penalize your rankings. Move the most important keywords to the beginning to increase their prominence for engines that still might take this tag into consideration.
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Therefore, even if the only thing they are good for are internal search relevance, I do not suggest not using them at all, if you can do them right.
Otherwise it is better to avoid implementing them.
Now about how to implement the meta tags keywords, like with or without commas, etc, I use comma and space.
Here is an article you might should read and make up your mind yourself:
Meta Keywords Tag 101: How To “Legally” Hide Words On Your Pages For Search Engines