Keyword Stuffing
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I am working with a client which has amazing results on Google but his site hits every "no no" to any of the google algros. The site has duplicate content, keyword stuffing, poor content and poor UX. However the site ranks p1 on any of the keyword searches. The site has about 2000 pages all duplicated maybe 1 our 2 words changed. I am a little apprehensive to get him to remove the duplicate contents and remove the keywords stuffing if it means he drops traffic and loses page rank.
I have also noticed competition to me rank higher on keywords when they've got a list of keyword and locations i.e web design windsor, web design manchester etc... etc... however they don't seem to get penalised.
Is there any accurate tools to check keyword stuffing? and has anyone else experienced this and has any recommendations to tackle this?
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At some point the site will either get reported and it will be manually looked at, or the Panda algo will catch up with them. Making changes are hard to do when a site ranks well. So its really your call on that, but if you want to have a middle road, you could suggest building new pages and have them ready to go just in case they get hit by panda.
Google does not mind internal duplication and unless it is really extreme they will not penalise you for it, I have spoken to Google's John Mueller about it multiple times, including just this Friday. Google will choose the page it thinks is the best fit and show that.
There are no tools that I would recommend other than your own eyes. Look at the site from a customers point of view, if it does not make sense get rid of it. For the most part Google is better today than it ever was at ranking sites based on actually quality rather than making sure you have all 200 SEO signals ticked off and the site looks like garbage to a user. Which was only 2 years ago really.
I would be very surprised if they rank higher for a keyword stuffed list. Google does not pay attention to them it is more interested in content with links embedded in that content. I would look at other reasons, maybe better internal linking through content. External Links are still a huge factor, maybe they have better links or better content overall across their site.
But going back to your client, i would let them make the decision but I would make it clear to them what the risks are, if they make the choice then it cant come back on you either way.
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