Few questions about panda and penguin
-
I seem to be a little confused about how SEO has changed recently and what things should be avoided even though I am still seeing these things impacted on my site. The recent panda and penguin updates have scared many of us SEO'ers into thinking that keyword optimization is now a no-no as apposed to how it used to be necessary. Let me explain
Concerning keyword optimization in the past in SEO we would practice placing keywords into our pages to make sure we are properly optimizing for such keywords. For instance bolding keywords, placing them in content, titles and descriptions. With panda Google seems to be negativly impacting the use of over optimization with keywods and it is what is preached about on most SEO blogs now, but I have been experimenting with such things with my sites and have noticed a few things.
Before the panda update I used to rank with my main site on a particular keyword in second place. While the panda update effected me negatively with ranking it was not so much the ranking that hurt me as apposed to the adsense revenue. I used to place consistently second place with my keyword, since panda I have dropped on average to 4th - 7th place, almost changing daily. The ranking was not so much a drop but the adsense revenue difference a month is about 2,000 which did impact me. Since then I have been going over panda rules and making the appropriate changes like getting rid of low quality content, to many keywords, ad placement. I am one who likes to experiment all the time so there are a few things that I have discovered with my diligence. I have noticed that when I cross a threshhold of about 5 repeated keywords on a page I am safe, when I begin to add more than 5 I start to notice a drop in ranking. If I go back to 5 and under I tend to rank back up. As well with that I have noticed that the placement of the keywords also impacts my ranking. When I place keywords more spread out over my page I see better rankings, if I tend to optimize my keyword more on the top portion of my page I see a drop in ranking.
My question is even though keyword optimization is considered a no-no I still see that it will impact my rankings greatly. Since everything I read kind of goes against this I am wanting to hear your opinions about this.
Another issue is relative content and the amount of pages/articles. It seems that to many pages or articles will flag you as a spam site. Now the idea of less is more is the practice we see. If this is the case then what I am questioning is how is it that google can determine a sites quality based on less. With less to use, google would have to have some serious and definitive triggers to determine the quality of the site. Can one simple page really change your ranking that much? How in the world does google determine the quality with just a few pages as apposed to many?
My site freescrabbledictionary.com (and no I am not back linking right now :)) I am a scrabble based site that helps users find words and definitions for scrabble games and other word games. On some of my pages I have articles/pages which give users important info like 2 letter words, high scoring words and other stuff. When I show these words I place a link on every word to my dictionary portion so users can easily click the link and look up the word and its definition. Some of these pages show over a thousand words, so yes I have a thousand links on that page to other pages on my site. I want to keep this feature so users don't have to type in the word to look it up, but I am torn as to if this is hurting me as apposed to helping. I would love some info on this please.
-
If you listen to Matt Cutts, the advice would be to think about the user experience. If those links on that page make it easier for the user and makes your page better, than that is how Google would tell you to go. You said that kewyword optimization is a no-no, but Google says OVER optimization is a no-no. In my opinion, I think they are referring to linking over-optimization for a particular keyword and lack of link diversity, creating an unnatural-looking linking pattern.
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
-
Have question about usage of similar keywords on single vs multiple pages within the same site...
I am working on a campaign with someone and have been talking back and forth about some keyword usage thoughts. More precisely multiple keywords that are similar and how to use them on the page for best results in ranking without diluting our own work to rank well. Example: Keywords:
Keyword Research | | allstatetransmission
Vehicle Wraps
Vehicle Wraps Phoenix
Phoenix Vehicle Wraps
Car Wraps
Car Wraps Phoenix
Phoenix Car Wraps One thought is that the keywords are so similar that it would best benefit us to target one page to the grouping of like keywords and long-tail keywords, and not making separate pages as to create competition for the same keyword within the site itself. Also that Google is "smart" enough to see that car wraps and vehicle wraps are like keywords, and that car wraps when linked to a site from Phoenix, will also pull as Car Wraps Phoenix. The other thought is we target one page for each separate keyword although the keywords are so similar. What are your thoughts? I wanted to ask all of your thoughts as I am sure your feedback will be enlightening. (Always helpful!!) Thank you!0 -
Meta tag question
Through research our competitors have created independent product codes like FT-5750 and are using it as an independent SKU#, when I search this product code they are the only search result. can we use their abbreviated SKU# in our meta tag or keywords to show up in the SERP? Thanks, Michelle & Blake
Keyword Research | | LeapOfBelief0 -
Aiming for long tails on a long piece of content, without over-optimisation and attracting Panda...
Hi, I'm currently in the process of optimising a new ecommerce site with tons of content.
Keyword Research | | azu25
We're really well-researching our information and are aiming for one page a week, so each page (such as category pages etc) is getting 5-7 days of research before the content is written, so that we know our info is correct and that more than enough content is available, rather than a simple 300-500 word article.
One category page in particular has the potential for maybe 4,000-6,000 words, or even more (I don't want to hit that, as it's not needed, but I'd like to go into enough detail about enough things to bring us up on top as the market leader) - Our biggest competitor is currently hitting around 2,500 words on the category page for their site and they're ranking for a lot of long tails. (Of course they're also getting a lot of links too!)
To put it simply, we have a better quality product and a range of options (we're one of the first [if not the first] in the UK to have several options for this product where you have the choice of going for the cheap option, or going for higher priced and better quality options etc), whereas our main competitor simply has one stand alone product. By default this gives us much more to work with regarding potential content. While building this site we haven't bothered to consider 'keyword density', as we're going for as white-a-hat as possible, but when it comes to long tails I'm finding that I may have to consider it for this page at least.
We have a few dozen long tails such as 'Where does X come from', 'Why is X so expensive', 'What is the difference between X and X' etc - You know the kind of keywords.
To help specifically with the long tails we've opted to include a FAQ section to that category page, but it seems that by doing this I have accidentally gone up to ~3% density on the 'X', which I suppose isn't too bad, but at the same time that one keyword has already made ~30 appearances in the content - and all we have done so far is the FAQ section.
I'm going through now and rewording it so that it's less 'keywordy' (although there does seem to be a limit to the number of times to can say 'it' before that starts to sound odd..), but was just wondering how you manage to write a long and detailed piece of content that is all specifically about one thing, without having to use that one keyword too many times, while also hitting plenty of long tails at the same time?0 -
A question about local longtail keywords
Hello all. This is my first interaction with SEOmoz, and I am still in my learning phases. I currently own a lawn fertilization company near Allentown, PA. I do the site for myself, and I am ranked number one for organic lawn care for my cities. My question may seem kind of elementary, but I just want to clear this up for myself. I want to start a side business doing SEO, and from what I gather step one is keyword research. I plan on building new sites to start as opposed to going in and fixing existing ones. So, I've been reading a lot on how to do keyword research and so forth. I will use my current business as a reference for my question. Should my main keywords be along the lines of "lawn care" and "lawn services", and then the location specific stuff be seperate? Or should my main keywords be "lawn care allentown, pa"? I plan on running my business solely for local businesses, so I am not to interested in competing with the entire world for keywords. I just wasn't sure how to differentiate my keyword research for local business. I hope that question made some sense. I am really starting to grasp the elements of SEO, but for some reason the keyword part of things perplexes me. Thanks for any responses!
Keyword Research | | GroundFloorSEO0 -
Keyword question
In my keywords should they include the city name or not? Example..... plastic surgery or plastic surgery Orlando I know the search engine knows what city i am in, if i search for plastic surgery and i live in Orlando, does it pull up world wide plastic surgery links first or local plastic surgery clinics? Thanks in advance. Daniel
Keyword Research | | dools0 -
Choose domain name! Question..Help me.
Hi, i like to start the strong project like a jobs bord. My question is, i was thinking to buy a broad keyword domain or brand. From my experience, and seo strategy, i believe or ithink to start with brand name, unique brand name, and i can build more naturaly backlinks or all type of seos, maybe is better than a jobs domain. What do you suggest me?
Keyword Research | | leadsprofi0 -
Help selecting KWs based on their difficult to rank for and KW tool question
I've done all of my keyword research, and now I'm selecting the KW's. In a previous question, seomoz had answered to pick a mix of easy, medium, and difficult words to rank for. How do I know which are easy, medium, difficult? The KW Difficulty Tool is not very specific. Is the level of difficulty related to where the phrase pops up for my company in search results? Are hard words ones that you do not already rank in the top 50 search results? When selecting KWs should I choose words that rank already in the top 50 that I'd like to try to move up? Or look for NEW phrases/words not in the top 50 results? Also, when entering KW phrases int the KW Difficulty Tool, Rank Tracker, and in Campaigns - do I need to use quotation marks if it is a phrase? I noticed that the KW difficulty tool has different results if you use quotation marks. Lastly, The person who did SEO before me has a list of KWs he optimized for, would it be valuable for me to include his words in my On-Page optimization efforts?
Keyword Research | | aircyclemegan0