Well, not really a shock, but good that Google has come out and said this finally.

We have know for a long time that the ‘keyword’ Meta tag was not being used by Google. There was also the suspicion that both Yahoo and Microsoft weren’t using it too. As we know the tag had been open to abuse since the early days of search engine importance and because it is hidden from the web viewer it was pretty much fair game for all sorts of SPAM and keyword stuffing.

Here is a video from Matt Cutts explaining the whole thing.

So until Microhoo come out with the same information, it pays to still use the keyword tag sparingly. It is not much of an effort to put the three or four keyphrases your page is trying to be optimised for in the tag. Any more than this is a waste of effort and also Google said ‘we don’t use the keyword in the tag’ it didn’t say that ‘we don’t use all the Meta tag information to help us gauge trust’. So, don’t stuff that Meta tag for old times sake and think it won’t be noted still!