In essence, Michael Meadhra’s article tells us that keyword meta tags don’t count

Even though search engines don’t make known their exact algorithms, observations indicate that the most relevant keywords are in the following order (highest first):

• Domain name
• Page title
• Headings (enclosed within h1, h2, h3 tags)
• Body text—The first 2 to 3 KB counts more
• Meta tags—Keywords appearing in the description meta tag still seem to count, as do keywords in some of the Dublin Core meta tags. Some search engines don’t ignore the keyword meta tag completely but, rather, discount it heavily—especially if the keyword doesn’t appear elsewhere on the page.
• Links—Even keywords buried in the URL, name, or id attributes of a link count in page ranking
• Alt text—Keywords in alt text attributes count toward page ranking. This is yet another reason to take the time to create meaningful alt text for all images.

Full article at builder.com.com