Meta Keywords Character Limit: Why There Isn't One
There is no meta keywords character limit that matters: Google ignores the tag. What Google, Bing and the HTML standard say, and where length counts.
There is no meta keywords character limit worth meeting, because the number would not change anything in Google. Google's documentation says the keywords meta tag is not used by Google Search and has no effect on indexing and ranking. The HTML standard defines the tag but sets no maximum length. So a limit quoted in an old guide or plugin did not come from Google or from the HTML standard.
Writing the fields that do count, like the title and meta description? Paste them into Clear Count. It counts characters as you type, in your browser, and nothing is uploaded.
This post covers what the tag is, what Google, Bing and the HTML standard say about it, whether to remove it, and where character counts still matter.
What the Keywords Meta Tag Is
The tag sits in the <head> of a page and lists words the author thinks describe it. Visitors never see it on the page. The WHATWG HTML Living Standard defines its value as a set of comma-separated tokens, "each of which is a keyword relevant to the page." Its own example is a page about typefaces on British motorways:
<meta name="keywords" content="british,type face,font,fonts,highway,highways">The definition gives no length limit and no maximum number of keywords. A program that reads the list splits the value on commas and drops duplicates. The same section adds a warning: many search engines do not consider these keywords, because the feature has been used unreliably and even misleadingly to spam search results.
What Google, Bing and the Standard Say
| Source | What it says about the keywords tag |
|---|---|
| Google Search Central, "Meta tags and attributes that Google supports" | Listed under unsupported tags: not used by Google Search, no effect on indexing and ranking |
| Google Search Central blog, September 21, 2009 | Google began disregarding the tag "many years ago" because it was so often abused |
| Bing Webmaster Guidelines | Covers title tags, meta descriptions and keyword stuffing, but does not mention a keywords meta tag |
| WHATWG HTML Living Standard | Defines the tag, sets no length limit, notes that many search engines ignore it |
Google's position is old and has not changed. The 2009 announcement and the current documentation say the same thing in different words. Bing is less clear. We read its current guidelines on November 2, 2026 and found no statement about the tag either way, so this post makes no claim about how Bing treats it.
What Bing's guidelines do warn against is keyword stuffing: excessive repetition, unnatural phrasing, or pages loaded with irrelevant keywords. They say this can reduce visibility or lead to removal.
Why Keyword Lists Stopped Working
The tag let a page describe itself with words that never had to appear in the text. That made it easy to fill with popular terms that had nothing to do with the content. Google's 2009 post gives that abuse as the reason it stopped using the tag. A list readers never see is also a list nobody checks.
Google's spam policies now describe keyword stuffing as filling a web page with keywords or numbers to manipulate rankings, often in a list or out of context. A long keywords tag is simply ignored by Google. The same list pasted into the visible text is a different matter, and our guide to keyword density shows how to spot repetition in a draft.
Should You Remove the Tag?
Since Google ignores it, an old tag left in place makes no difference in Google Search. Removing it is still sensible housekeeping, for three reasons:
- Anyone can read it. The tag is in the page source, so it shows the terms you were targeting to anyone who looks.
- It goes stale. A keyword list is easy to forget when the page is rewritten.
- Your tools have moved on. Yoast SEO says the meta keywords feature ceased to exist in version 6.3 of the WordPress plugin.
One case is different. If your own site search, intranet or CMS reads the tag, that system's documentation sets the rules and any length limit. Keep the tag for that system and follow its limits, not a number from an SEO guide.
Focus Keyphrase Is Not the Keywords Tag
Some SEO plugins ask for a focus keyphrase, and it is easy to mistake that box for the old tag. Yoast says the meta keywords tag has nothing to do with the focus keyword in its plugin. The focus keyphrase is used by the plugin to check how well your page covers a topic. It is not a signal sent to search engines, so it has no character limit to meet either.
Where Character Counts Do Matter
The limits worth checking are on text people see in search results and on the page. Google says the meta description is used for the snippet in some situations. It also says there is no limit on a <title> element, but the title link is shortened as needed to fit the device width. These are the fields to spend time on:
- Title: put the main phrase first. The meta title character limit guide explains why pixel width matters more than a fixed number.
- Meta description: see meta description character limit for the length, and why Google rewrites meta descriptions for what happens when it doesn't fit the query.
- H1: the H1 character limit guide covers the main heading.
- All of them at once: the on-page SEO character limits cheat sheet puts every field on one page.
Two more posts cover the background and the routine. Why character count matters for SEO explains the reasons, and the SEO character counter guide shows how to check each field before publishing.
How a Counter Reads a Keyword List
If a system you use does cap its keywords field, count before you paste. We typed the HTML standard's example list into Clear Count on November 2, 2026. It showed Chars 45, the no-spaces figure 44 and Words 2.
The word figure is not a mistake. Clear Count splits words on spaces, so "british,type" counts as one word and the rest of the list as another. It does not count comma-separated items, so count the commas instead: six keywords have five. Our post on characters with and without spaces explains why the two character figures differ.
What to Do With the Tag Now
There is no keywords character limit to meet, because Google doesn't read the tag and the HTML standard sets no maximum. Leave an old tag or remove it, and spend the time on the title, the meta description and the page itself. To check those lengths, paste each one into Clear Count. It counts as you type and keeps the text in your browser.
Sources: Google Search Central, "Meta tags and attributes that Google supports" (last updated 2025-12-10), "Influencing your title links in search results", "Spam policies for Google web search" and the blog post "Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking" (September 21, 2009); WHATWG HTML Living Standard, section "Standard metadata names"; Bing Webmaster Guidelines (read November 2, 2026); Yoast, "Meta keywords are no longer helpful for SEO".
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