Google does still check meta information, but NOT for any type of ranking influence. They use meta description to provide the listings description when Google cannot ascertain a better one from the page, especially dynamic pages that change constantly. Google would prefer to then use a descriptive meta description for that page, but again, it isn't used for rankings, just what the searcher see's as the pages description in their listings.
Keywords are not used... haven't for donkeys years. Other meta tags have little relevance for Google, and also don't influence rankings. They look at such tags as cache and such, to respect the page authors wishes... just like copyright, basically. If you don't give Google permission to spider or cache your page/s, site or directory/s, then they respect that due to copyright and other laws of which they must comply with due to losing in specific prior court actions.
I am a retired global SEO expert, and I can tell you now that no SEO Specialist of any weight would state such nonsense. There are much better ways to game results if into that, though all will get caught eventually. This is why most experts use throwaway domains and such to do these less than ethical means, instead of using the main website.
