Can Your Site Get Penalized For Keyword Stuffing On An 'Untarged' Keyword?
-
My site has dropped since the EMD/Panda 20 roll out and I am looking for reasons why.
I am looking at Keyword Stuffing as one potential problem.
My web site is on the topic of WordPress Security with that being the main keyword I want to target.
Now I can limit the number of occurrences of 'wordpress security' to below the recommended 15, but it is impossible to do this for 'wordpress' without severely compromising the user experience.
I've got other content on topics such as WordPress Backup and WordPress Security Plugins etc, so obviously the word 'wordpress' is bound to appear frequently.
Is there a risk that Google will penalize me for Keyword Stuffing on 'wordpress' and thus pull down the site or page for other keywords?
Or would it simply mean I won't be able to rank for 'wordpress' (which I am quite happy about)?
Thanks!
-
Excellent suggestions - thanks!
-
Hi Anders,
I think Ruth made some great points in her comments above. I read over your content and several things occur to me. If this were my project, I may consider reorganizing some of the information on the home page.
Further below in the page, you have some items that appear to be FAQ(ish). You might find an opportunity to move some of this content into another page, but create a call to action (anchored text links) to them. This helps you gain traffic deeper into your site content, so the home page asks the question, which do well. The links draw them further into the site and engages them to convert (download).
Also, I'm seeing the alt image tag text report the use of "The WordPress Security Checklist" several times. I would consider using this term once versus the three occurrences.
The strengths that you have is the keyword term in the URL, which is a huge benefit. Ruth's comments on using WP versus wordpress is insightful, because it bolsters the URL. I would scale back to find a bit more balance and you'll get there. You can always scale back up, as you see fit.
Also, here is a flag to consider:
Multiple meta description tags found!
I'm sure others may have more specific input, but this is what I would consider adjusting. The joy of SEO is research, implement, test, and modify...
Best of Luck,
andrew
-
OK, when I run the On Page Optimization tool on the competitors site it only shows 16 occurrences of the term 'wordpress security'.
The remaining occurrences appeared in a twitter widget, which I guess is loaded in an iframe or by javascript or something like that...
There were 34 occurrences of the word 'wordpress' on the competitor site.
-
Yup, makes sense now. And try not to focus too much on an actual percentage when it comes to keyword frequency. Google never set a standard; that is just some experienced SEO's best educated estimation.
-
Someone on the Google Webmaster forum also suggested the 'read out loud' test.
I like it, and did go through the text with fresh eyes. I managed to make some good changes and build in some more variation.
I think I might just be too focused on the limit of 15...
-
Sorry for being unclear... was worried that if Google was going to penalize me for overusing 'wordpress' I'd suffer for the word 'wordpress security' too...
Does that make sense?
-
If you're suffering from Panda, another thing to look at is how much content you have overall. If you've got a small amount of text and it has high recurrence of keywords, that's a bad sign for Panda. A tip I like to use when it comes to keyword stuffing is to read your text out loud. If it sounds unnatural, you're probably using the keyword too often. I would focus on creating some new quality content and on making your language sound natural.
If you feel like you're saying Wordpress too much but it's negatively impacting your site, you could use "WP" or other variations to add some variety.
-
The first thing that came to my mind is that you may not be intending to target this specific word, but because it's stuffed throughout the page, Google may think you're targeting it.
I'm also confused as to what the issue is if you're afraid Google will think you're keyword stuffing and won't rank you for ''Wordpress'' but you say that you actually don't want to rank for that anyway.
I'm just going to go with the standard best practice here and say to write the article for your users, not Google. Write it the way you would if Google did not exist. Google's algorithms are smarter than you think, and penalization of quality content that is intended for user experience is not something that generally happens.
-
Would you mind providing a site link? It would be helpful to see an example.
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
-
Unsolved How to add geo keyword without it looking keyword stuffed
I'm updating my mobile home inspection page and I want to add geo keywords with my seed keyword Mobile Home Inspections. How do I add these so that the page do not look like it keyword stuffed? Is there a technique that you use for this? I was thinking something like internal links to the City pages of have but then the Anchor text landing page would be a cite page and not a mobile home inspection page.
On-Page Optimization | | Vallerinspects1 -
I'm struggling with ranking for a really important keyword!
I'm helping with SEO for a client who has a very old website, but is updated regularly and has lots of relevant content for the keywords i'm looking to rank for. For other keywords we are able to get to position #3 on Google, yet for this one - the name of the town the website is about - we rank on page 15 of Google. I haven't done anything differently between the two and I really can't see why we can't get there. I've just done the monthly report for the client, and it's showing as being at position #1 for all of July - I checked during that month, and it wasn't. And then on 1st August it dropped to page 20 of Google. I understand slight fluctuations but this is pretty major. Can anyone help?
On-Page Optimization | | Cubiqdesign0 -
URL Keywords
I am doing SEO on our eCommerce website and read that I should include keywords in the URL The original URL is: http://thegiftlinks.com/personalized-wedding-glass.html
On-Page Optimization | | abdulw
Title page: Wedding gift Dubai - Anniversary gift Dubai - Personalized Wedding Glass
Meta Data:
Wedding gift Dubai - Anniversary gift Dubai - Personalized Wedding Glass
It is great for a wedding gift and anniversary gift for friends and family members. If I will include the keyword to the url it will be like this
http://thegiftlinks.com/personalized-wedding-glass.html/Wedding-gift-Dubai is this the correct way to include keywords in the URL? Thanks0 -
Can't get authorship to show in the rich snippets tool...
Can't get authorship to show in the rich snippets tool... am I doing something wrong? spokanepaintingcontractor.org
On-Page Optimization | | Superflys0 -
SEO and multilanguage site
Hi all! I have used a wordpress plugin called WPML which translates a webpage into another language so that I have a webpage in two different languages (spanish (main market) and english). I'm just doing the seo for the spanish market and I'm gonna start with the seo for the english one. Should I do it just the same as I had a one-single-language page? just with english keywords, etc. I guessit would only differ in the way I do the linkbuilding strategy as the markets are different Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | juanmiguelcr0 -
Two keywords in one page
Hi guys, I have a question...is it possible to posicionate two keywords in one only page? If yes, how would it be the process so that Google take note of that action/s. How many criteria/keywords are recommended to positionate in one site? Thanks all
On-Page Optimization | | juanmiguelcr0 -
Keywords Qty per page.
I have a website http://www.versaillesdentalclinic.com with 20 pages in Total, but i need it to be on the top page of Google by 65 keywords and may be more. How many keywords per page shall I use? Currently I am promoting around 12 keywords high competitive for main page? Is it ok? I will appreciate a good answer 😉 Thanks, Russel
On-Page Optimization | | smokin_ace0 -
Page title getting cut off in SERPS even though it's under 70 characters?
I re-wrote the page title of a home page for a site I'm working on and made sure it's under 70 characters (68 to be exact) to comply with best practices and make sure it doesn't get cut-off in the SERPS. It's still getting cut-off though and right when it gets to the brand/website name. Does a "-" have anything to do with it? Does that translate to an elipsis? Format: keywords - website/brand.com Can anybody tell me why this would be happening?
On-Page Optimization | | MichaelWeisbaum0