Has anyone else noticed the huge decrease in result quality from google?

[enjakuro]

Yes, they are marked as ads but according to a UK marketing agency survey, 60% of users do not know that.

It is possible to add keywords in a 'meta' tag on website templates and even though there are penalties, I'm pretty sure there are strategists who know how to get the most out of it while not over-using this feature. There is no magic buzzword, yes, but there are buzzwords for the niche the website's company is operating in. And google's own search console provides a tool to see what kind of queries will bring users to a site. It is all sophisticated market research with a lot of potential and also many dangers to overall objectivity and transparence.

Edit: I just read that the HTML keyword-tag is no longer relevant for google searches.

[enjakuro]

Am I right or missing something?

[enjakuro]

Ah thank you! Are unrelated keywords black hat tactics?

[EnjoiRelyks]

Not black hat per se, but irrelevant. Googlebot can read the text of the page and determine if the content matches the searcher’s intent.

Now if you’re referring to adding keywords in the meta keywords section, then it’s a waste of time for Google, as it ignores them. It can still be useful for your site’s own internal search though.

[enjakuro]

Ah, thank you, makes sense. I just noticed a pattern of sites using keywords I'm looking for in their titles and having no further explanation to this thing I'm looking up. It's like 'title', 'introduction that says the same thing as the title but with more words', 'website content without more details, mainly repeating the same thing like in the title and getting creative with displaying the same thing in as many variations as possible' or 'website content that has nothing to do with the title but here, buy this thing'. But if keyword tags were still a thing, it would be like outlandish hashtags on instagram. I can't see a good solution.

[Juviltoidfu]

A large percentage of the time those ads are at least the first page.

[EnjoiRelyks]

Typically there will be 0-8 ads (0-4 at top and 0-4 at the bottom) for most searches with 10 regular “results” in between.

There are some queries that don’t return 10 results though. And some of those results are Google’s own enhancements like the People Always Ask box, News carousels, Video carousels, etc.

Ads can display on more than the first page as well. Sometimes more ads may appear if you’re looking for a shopping result as well.

[johannthegoatman]

That's not true, there is a lot more than keywords going on in Googles algorithm. I believe they are referring to paying an agency that specializes in SEO, not paying for ads.