The number of keywords dilutes the effectiveness of each keyword.

Almost every website you visit has too many keywords stuffed into the keyword metatag. Although keywords are not as significant as they used to be in the eyes of search engines, they do contribute to your overall success in search engine placement. Let's look at an example of keywords done well and one done poorly.

Keywords done well

The html source code from www.newyorkdoor.com

I just plucked this website off the top of my head. Sure enough, the website existed. www.newyorkdoor.com. If you look at the source for the page that opens (menu bar View/Page Source in Firefox or View/Source in Internet Explorer) you will see that they have just 6 keywords. Note that the term "keyword" can refer to more than one word. It should really be called "keyphrase".
By the way, keywords must be separated by commas.

Keywords done poorly

When there are too many keywords, the effectiveness of each keyword is weakened.

This source is from a website that has too many keywords. The more keywords within the keyword metatag of a single web page, the less effective each one is. This makes sense of course, as search engines try to create the best match for the search words that a person browsing the web uses; if you had, for example, only one keyword, it is more likely that is exactly what your web page is all about.

No keywords entered

In this example, no keywords exist, throwing away a free way to help search engines make a keyword match with their website.

Some websites have completely omitted keywords, and others forget to place a comma between keywords. If commas are left out, all the keywords are essentially considered to be a single keyword, which would make it all but impossible for a search engine to make an exact match.

Tags: keywords, metatag, SEO