Is This Keyword Stuffing/Spamming?
-
We are a custom patch company--we make patches for many different types of clients. I have a gallery of patches for almost every kind of client, and they all have their own pages. If I put navigation on the home page such as what I show below, will Google consider that to be too much?
Boy Scout Patches | Motorcycle Patches | Fire Patches | Police Patches | Military Patches | Sports Patches | Business and Organization Patches | Paintball Patches | Scooter Patches | In Memory Patches
They would all be links to different pages, and there would be literally 50-60 more!
Would it be better to remove the word patches from all of the links?
And then another question comes up: too many on-page links?
-
Great!
I see that you made the design wider. I think that is an improvement.
Thanks for the report.
-
Hi Marisa. That's good news. Keep in mind that it is not uncommon that you get an initial bounce with optimization. Keep an eye on the ranking as it may fluctuate and eventually settle after a few crawls to consistent rank.
-
So guess what? I added a links with images on the home page just for the most relevant keywords, like you said, and my ranking improved!
-
Yeah, you would think! No one seems to care! I think getting more Facebook and Twitter followers is the hardest and most frustrating part of my job!
-
We have a Pintrest account. Why I haven't put a link to it on the homepage, I don't know. Thanks for the reminder!
-
You've got some social channels working now...but Pinterest is a missing element and is taking off like lightning.
-
I think that patches could be powerful powerful in social media. Patches - both directly and indirectly - are a social connection badge. So if you can get people to start sharing it could lead to a lot of traffic and sales.
-
Thanks for the advice. Having a quote form directly on the home page has increased conversion by MASSIVE amounts, so I don't see that going anywhere any time soon.
And thanks I'm trying not to panic too much!
-
Thank you for taking the time. I think everything you said is excellent advice.
Since I've already done the KW research and know the most popular types of patches, I'm one step ahead. I can see how making users more engaged can actually help ranking, since I've been hearing a lot lately about how Google takes into account things like bounce rate and time on site to gauge relevancy. I think I am going to do exactly what you said about including an image and a link for the most popular types of patches.
As far as the animation goes, I hate it too and think it's distracting. I also want to get rid of it because Flash seems to be on the outs. The owner is in love with it, and I don't see it going anywhere anytime soon.
-
Do plenty of research (in Keywords, Analytics and SEOmoz) before you start making changes to your homepage, so you'll be making informed decisions. Your get a quote section is taking up a lot of valuable homepage real estate. You might consider creating a banner link to a quote page and use that space for beneficial content. You can create links to your quote page from just about anywhere, so it shouldn't be hard for people to find.
Good luck. Resist the temptation to panic and start grabbing at straws. Be methodical about your changes.
-
I just went to the site and reread your question.... visited some competitors too.
You are looking to add navigation to the homepage of the site that links straight to deeper category pages.
If I had a site in this niche I would do KW research to learn about the most often searched types of patches. Then my homepage would be a gallery of fantastic images - one for each of the most often searched categories. When a person clicks the image they would go to a fantastic presentation of patches of that type.
Google knows everything that everybody everywhere is searching for. My belief is that if your homepage has links to internal pages for everything that everybody everywhere is searching for then that is kickass optimization because it clearly says that you are relevant relevant relevant.
This type of gallery would immediately get people drilling deeper into my site and finding that we have done patches for the organizations and themes that they are looking for - so it should be good for conversions too.
======================
<unsolicited comment=""> I see the animation on the homepage... I don't know what your site looked like before that. But I am wondering if the percentage of people going to deeper pages and placing orders dropped after that animation went up. If this was my site I would be looking into that and be ready to retire it if the data looked that way. </unsolicited>
My bet is that if you have a "gallery of work" on the homepage as described above that the site will rank a little better and sell a lot better. Just sayin my gut because I find it almost impossible to focus on other information while that animation is running... and although that animation is a really good one and amusing, I would find out if it is makin' any money.
-
Thanks for the advice. You reminded me that I'm designing for the user, not the bots. I was just getting a little desperate because, no, our site, is not new--it's a PR4 site that's been online since 1998--but it's continuously dropping in Google. It's now one space from the bottom of the first page for the keyword "embroidered patches." We used to rule Google, so I'm just trying anything I can, while still being legit.
All the sites above us are pr1-3 sites, so I'm starting to wonder if something's wrong with the site itself, so I've been making tweaks.
It's www.stadriemblems.com in case anyone's curious.
-
ha ha...
I am just sayin' what I would do. Not sayin' that it is the best.
I am waiting to get a lot of thumbs down for that post.
-
I will always defer to Egol. Proceed with carpet bombing for 6-8 months, then conduct In-Page Analytics and re-consider aforementioned approach.
-
I would use it.
.... because it is bombing anchor text at all of those pages.
-
You don't need the word "patches" on all those links. Users will know those are patch categories and don't need to read it. Having "patches" in those links is not what is going to bolster your homepage optimization for keywords such as "custom patches" or "custom embroidery patches" etc. A good homepage title and homepage content will do that for you.
I'm guessing your site is relatively new and may not have much domain authority (I may be wrong). If that is the case, pare down the volume (10-15) of links on the homepage to the categories that generate the most business for you: ie "sports patches" "business patches" etc. You'll get better juice distribution to those important pages if there are fewer homepage links.
Once you pare it down, create a left nav link to the rest of your patches - basically a landing page with the rest of the links to the other pages.
-
Hi Marisa,
For 50 - 60 links per page, all containing the word "patches", I'd consider cutting back. You can carry out on-page optimisation of these pages including the word "patches", but for site-wide links, or from the home page, this is going to be quite excessive. If you look at a successful site like Interflora (http://www.interflora.co.uk/), they've been careful not to over-do the internal links for terms along the lines of "[keyword] flowers." There's some relatively aggressive SEO on that page, but nowhere near 50 - 60 links.
A long time ago, Matt Cutts specified that you'd want no more than 100 links per page, but it's generally agreed that a good site can get away with more than that nowadays. The blog post about this is here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/questions-answers-with-googles-spam-guru
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
-
Sub domains take away the pagerank/link juice of main website?
Hi all, I would like to know how sub domains will be collaborated with domain or main website in terms of authority, backlinks, link juice, etc...Link juice will be passed to sub domains from domain or vice versa? If there are large number of pages in sub domain, will that going to impact the ranking of main domain? Backlinks of sub domain are going to be a deciding factor for website ranking too? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Using Brand value for SEO: Can we use keyword with brand name?
Hi Moz community, I am curious to know this. Let's say there is a brand value for a company. It has it's own popularity that it's been mentioned across the internet and social media directly with brand name without their service or industry keyword. Now if the company started promoting themselves like keyword along with their brand name, will it help them to rank for that keyword. For example, Moz is already famous, now they want to rank for "SEO" and related keywords, so they started calling themselves on internet "Moz SEO"; will this fetch them in ranking for keyword SEO? My ultimate question is, using primary keyword along with brand name will work out in ranking for that primary keyword or not? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Old school SEO tools / software / websites
Hey Mozzers, I am doing some research and wonder if you can help me out? Before Moz, Hubspot, Majestic, Screaming Frog and all the other awesome SEO tools we use today what were the SEO tools / software / websites that were used for aiding SEO? I guess we can add the recently closed Yahoo! Directory for starters! Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | RikkiD220 -
If I optimize for a long tailed keyword, will I also catch the short keywords within it?
Say my long tailed keyword has three words in it that I also consider keywords. Will I catch the searches for those short keywords, or just the long tailed keyword phrase?
Algorithm Updates | | Scratch_MM0 -
All keywords increasing rank except URL Keyword, whats going on?
Hello, Our website is a private equity firm database, privateequityfirms.com. We rank well for a number of private equity definitions and terms and have been increasing rank in those terms but unfortunately we have been losing ranking in our main keyword and url "private equity firms" .We have ranked as high as 3rd under wikipedia. The only real changes we have made are too the sitemap that is auto generated every time some thing is changed in the database. Does anyone have any ideas what is going on? I have included a Image to help show the problem. Thank you! MozAnalyticsPDF115_zpsddec64fa.png
Algorithm Updates | | Nicktaylor10 -
Video SEO <video:uploader>sitemap optional tag for Google+</video:uploader>
Anyone know the specifics or using the video:uploaderoptional tag for Google+ for rel=”author” attribution. for video sitemap?</video:uploader> Related post has some info, but no specific example. http://www.distilled.net/blog/video/getting-video-results-in-google/ Quote from above link: "Good practice is to ensure that the
Algorithm Updates | | Packetman007
video:uploaderelement links to a Google+ profile or a blog profile
page with rel=”author” attribution. "</video:uploader> This is what it seems it should look like in the video sitemap: <video:uploader info="<a href=" https:="" plus.google.com="" 111123738944093379428"="" target="_blank">https://plus.google.com/111123738944093379428">Bill
Alderson</video:uploader> If you know this works and is worth editing video sitmaps to add the optional tag, let me know your experience. Alternately, my site (and each page, thanks to Yoast SEO for WP) does have the rel="author" linked to Google+ for every page, which may make the sitemap entry moot, but I have not yet seen this work in that manner. If you know it does or does not work, please let me know. Please let me know if you have any better information or specific experience. Also, if I elect to edit my sitemaps (provided by Wistia.com and BitsontheRun) to include this tag, what XML Sitemap Tool might work well to add these tags properly? Seems there is lots of XML Sitemap tools, but few really address Video Sitemap options specifically. Thanks, Bill@apalytics.com www.apalytics.com0 -
How to Link a Network of Sites w/o Penguin Penalties (header links)
I work for a network of sites that offer up country exclusive content. The content for the US will be different than Canada, Australia, Uk, etc.… but with the same subjects. Now to make navigation easy we have included in the header of every page a drop down that has links to the other countries, like what most of you do with facebook/twitter buttons. Now every page on every site has the same link, with the same anchor text. Example: Penguins in Canada Penguins in Australia Penguins in the USA Because every page of every site has the same links (it's in the header) the "links containing this anchor text" ratio is through the roof in Open Site Explorer. Do you think this would be a reason for penguin penalization? If you think this would hurt you, what would you suggest? no follow links? Remove the links entirely and create a single page of links? other suggestions?
Algorithm Updates | | BeTheBoss0 -
Question about Local / Regional SEO
Good Morning Moz Community, I have a local SEO/regional SEO question. I apologize if this question is duplicated from another area on this forum but, a query of the term Regional SEO showed no results, as did similar queries. Please preference this entire question with "Knowing what we know about the most recent changes to local search" I know what has worked in the past, my concern is Now. Working with a heavily regulated client that is regional, mostly East Coast US. They are in Financial Services and state licensing is a requirement. They are licensed in 15 states. Obviously, it would look foolish, in this day in age, to Title Tag individual pages with local modifiers and have numerous pages covering a similar topic with not much difference than localized modifiers in front of the keyword. I've never found that SE's can understand broad regional terms such as New England or Mid Atlantic or Southeast or Northeast, if someone knows different please share. Aside from an exact match search. The client does have 7 offices in various states. Perfectly matching and consistent listings in G Places, Bing Local and Yahoo Local was step one and all their locations are now in those services and there are many more smaller local citation listings are in the works. We have also successfully implemented a plan to generate great reviews from actual customers, for each location, they're receiving a few a day right now. Their local places listings, where they have physical locations, are doing very well but: 1. What would the community's suggestion be on generating more targeted traffic in the 8 states where they have no physical location? 2. The client wants to begin creating smaller blogs that are highly localized to the states and major population centers that they do not have a physical location in. There is an open check book to dedicate to this effort however, I do a lot of work in this industry so I want to offer the best possible, most up to date advice, my concern is that these efforts will have two results: a. be obscured by the ”7 pack" by companies with local brick and mortar b. would detract from the equity built in their existing blog by generating content in other domains, I would prefer to continue growing the main blog. 3. As a follow up, it has been documented that Google is now using the same algorithm for local, personal and personalized, that being the case, is there any value in building links to you Places page? Can you optimize your Places page by using the same off site techniques as you would traditionally? Sorry to kill you with such a long question on a Sunday 🙂
Algorithm Updates | | dogflog1