keyworded

Keyworded refers to content that has been annotated with keywords to aid discovery, indexing, or categorization. The term is used across fields such as web publishing, library science, and data management, where keywords serve as searchable labels that describe the subject matter, purpose, or attributes of a document, product, or record.

In web contexts, keyworded pages may include targeted terms in visible copy as well as in metadata fields such as the page title, description, and meta keywords. In catalogs and databases, records are keyworded to support retrieval by topic, author, or format. Academic abstracts, product descriptions, and news articles are commonly keyworded to improve visibility in search interfaces and internal search tools.

Keywording is closely related to tagging and controlled vocabularies. It can be done manually by editors or automatically through text analysis and indexing pipelines. A potential drawback is keyword stuffing, the excessive or irrelevant repetition of terms that can harm readability and may trigger penalties in some search systems. Modern search engines increasingly emphasize user intent, natural language, and structured data over simple keywording, reducing the effectiveness of over-optimized keywording.

While keywording remains foundational for discovery, best practices emphasize relevance, consistency, and alignment with established vocabularies or schema, such as subject headings or metadata schemas, to ensure accurate and durable retrieval across platforms.