Avoid Keyword Stuffing in Document
-
I have been implementing changes to our site outlined by the
on-page report tool. One of the most common issues it highlighted with our site
was Avoid Keyword
Stuffing in Document. I have started reducing the number of
keywords on each page so it falls under the recommended 15. So far we haven’t
seen any positive effects from this and i am a little concerned we might be
seeing some negative effect (very early days).Has anyone else implemented this change recently and what effect
did it have?Is this recommendation more in preparation to the up and coming
update from Google that will penalise over optimised sites?Any info much appreciated
Jos Davies
-
Keyword density today is somewhat of a myth. If it is natural, then Google is very forgiving of keyword stuffing, and they have pretty good algorithms to determine what is natural or not.
With that in mind, the SEOmoz On page tools should be considered more of a guide than an absolute rule.
I could go on, but these two videos say it better than I could:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/advanced-onpage-optimization-whiteboard-friday
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-new-onpage-optimization-whiteboard-friday
-
Jos, keep an eye on other posts that relate to rankings fluctuations. A Google update is coming. Whether or not some of these observations showing on the forum radar is the initial affects of the update remains to be seen.
Be careful to panic or over-assume or you might start grabbing at straws.
-
Hi, I'm not certain at all, buts it’s the only thing that has
been changed on the page. It could be a case of Google readjusting, or not
related at all.I was just hoping to hear from users who had implemented similar changes. Hopefully by Monday the page will be back in the same position it was yesterday.
Thanks
Jos
-
Included in that count is the H1 instance of the keyword. Are you certain that keyword density is the only factor at play in your rankings?
-
3 or 4 !, I have always strugggled to get the keyword mentions that low. I'm talking about removing 7 out of 40 refrences!! I wanted to remove more but i was worried that we might see a drop (and we have). Maybe its down to somtheing else. I will be keeping a close eye over the weekend
Out of interest when you say 3 or 4, is that just body text or do you count the h1 h2 etc
Thanks again
Jos
-
Hi Jos. I've not heard of the less than 15 keyword rule. SEOmoz research tools puts the sweet spot at four. We've found 2-5 instances produce good results depending on the volume of content, competitiveness of the keyword and our domain authority. For perspective, if we have dense above the fold content we keep it to four or less. If our content goes below the fold we'll work in one or two more instances for even distribution.
-
It seems to be a bit dangerous to describe the Avoid Keyword
Stuffing in Document reccomendation as high importance if its not proven to be of benefit.Maybe its should be downgraded to an optional factor?
-
MyHolidayMarketing, I think it could be seen as removing a penalty, more than a bonus. I mean, if a website is filled with a large amount of superoptimized text it it can be penalized, if it then removes that text the malus could be removed too. So that what seems a good action is only "not to do a bad action".
If that text would be great content, using naturally that term/those terms tons of times, probably it wouldn't be penalized, on the countrary, dealing with Panda algorithm, it would be seen as a strenght for that website.
Maybe you can see the (n° keyword)/(total words) ratio to see how your content is good.
Anyone knows the correct range of values for that ratio? -
Hi Thanks for the reply, yes i remember that post and it shows the importance of the point.
I would never stuff a page with keywords, and i would like to think no self respecting content writer would, but in some cases there is only one way to describe a product and you can naturally end up with a large ammount of mentions of a particular product on one page.
I'm just not sure where the figure of 15 has come from because surely it should be more based on a percentage than an over all figure.
Anyway, i would really like to here any other examples of user users trying to stick with the under 15 keywords rule
-
If the large number of keywords were natural (An SEO agency talking about SEO in a large blog post for example, might mention it meny times naturaly) then I wouldn't worry about it.
If you have been artifically stuffing your documents with keywords, I would be more concerned about how it reads to a human long before worrying about google. People tend to not to trust obviously keyword stuffed content.
The 'keyword stuffing' has been a reccomendation long before the coming update. I do remember there being a blog post here and a similar QA question on over optimisation where removing 2-3 instances of a keyword massivly improved rankings - Showing that it has been possable to be penalised for over-optimisation for a long time now.
One of the blog posts can be found here - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/lessons-learned-by-an-over-optimizer-14730
Hope this helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How do you explain this in this Keyword Difficulty Report?
Hello here, I am trying to understand how my site virtualsheetmusic.com can better compete for the keyword "sheet music download" where we used to be 3rd until a few months ago, and now we are at the 5th spot. But here is my specific question: I can't find an explanation why two of our competitors are ranked before us at the 3rd and 4th spot. Please, look at the attached image (very wide) which shows the Keyword Difficulty Report for this keyword. You can also download a PDF of it here below: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/storage/keyword-sheet-music-download.pdf We are at the 5th spot, and the two competitors highlighted in pink are the ones I am talking about: I am trying to understand why they are ranking better than us, despite our metrics look much better than theirs. In fact, if I look at the metrics in the report, I can't find an explanation to justify their outrank against us, so there must be something else that the report is missing. Any thoughts about this issue are very welcome! Thank you in advance for any help. Sincerely,
Moz Pro | | fablau
Fabrizio [keyword-sheet music download.jpg](http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/storage/keyword-sheet music download.jpg)0 -
My Keyword Stats are Lagging?
In several of my PRO campaigns, I'm noticing that my keyword traffic stats are several weeks behind. Any idea what is causing this? Here's today's report from a campaign: Any help or explanation is great. Thanks!
Moz Pro | | jeffpic0 -
Keyword Rankings
Hi there, Are you able to request keyword rankings for a particular day? This would help me with client reporting. If you have any additional information, I'd greatly appreciate it. Regards, Andrew
Moz Pro | | JuiceBoxOM0 -
Is there any way to move keywords from one Campaign to another?
We recently moved content off a subdomain onto our main www subdomain. Each of these was previously tracked as its own campaign. Now that the content is consolidated, I'd like to move the keywords that we were tracking on the first campaign over to the second. I don't see an option to migrate, or export/import keywords. Is there any (non-manual) way to do this? Thanks
Moz Pro | | doxo2 -
Find out what keywords a site is ranking for
I want to find out what keywords a site is ranking for. In other words, I want to find out how Google is currently seeing a site. I've used Google KW tool - not very accurate when you simply type in the URL. Is there anything in SEOMoz I can use? New to this. thanks
Moz Pro | | goodge0 -
Keywords rankings compared competitors not working
Hello, My keywords rankings compared competitors is not working : http://screencast.com/t/x88Z6tXB2r For months I've never have any stats in the competitors columns, why ? Thank you
Moz Pro | | JeanlouisSEO0 -
SEOmoz campaign - keyword rankings...
Hi there, I have a quick question: Does it make a difference if I add keywords to a campaign with the '[' and ']' brackets included? I just realized that I had copy/pasted many of my keywords from the exported CSV from the Google AdWords Keyword Tool and I fear that the keyword rankings on SEOmoz might factor the brackets as part of the keywords themselves. Thanks in advance! Ben
Moz Pro | | BenHammer0 -
SEOmoz keyword difficulty tool
Is anyone else having problems with this? Every search I do seems to throw up an error in the traffic fields.
Moz Pro | | neooptic0