Is bolding keywords spammy?
-
It used to work for me on some sites - but maybe it's considered spammy these days?
Any feedback appreciated.
-
I think it might be possible to get penalty from bolding. I started to appear/disappear yesterday with my both main keywords on homepage. It kept doing that every few mins until today, disappeared and not any signals to come back. Both keywords was bolded in the first paragraph. Keyword density is ok.
My backlink anchors are fine and i don't think it is because of them. Still, made some moves and changed exact match keywords to my domain/url ones on some websites.
Homepage is still ranking for its other keywords, where is also those main keywords inlcuded as a long tail ones. So everything else seems to be good at the moment. I wonder if i manage to come back soon.. Any thought?
-
I occasionally use rather to highlight a phrase or a word, I don't think it has much influence on SEO, I would never simply bold keywords for SEO sake.. If it's really that important I'll make it a heading and give it a
****to
tags, which will factor much better.****
-
I beleive it is an easy factor for google to take into account when looking at a page for SEO over optimization so I don't do it because I think there is no benefit and it looks bad to the user in most cases.
-
I agree with Jackson on this one. If it makes sense and provides value to bold a keyword phrase, I see no reason why you shouldn't do it. I often bold phrases I want to drive home in the reader's mind.
But if it is really just to highlight keywords and for "SEO" then, yeah, it will probably look spammy.
-
I agree with Chris - it's definitely old school and can look a little spammy, especially if it is overused or calls attention to a somewhat unnatural use of a keyword.
That being said, I don't think bolding a keyword will incur a penalty from Google. If emphasizing the keyword provides some kind of value to a user, than you should definitely consider using it.
-
Good point Chris... I know, old school - refreshing my skills!
Going to remove the boldening, just needed to know if it could be causing a penalty or not.
thanks,!
-
It used to be considered a very, very minor factor and though I don't believe it is algorithmically spammy today, I do think it looks spammy and old school. My feeling is that people now get the impression they've been or are being marketed to when they land on a page that has the keyword emboldened.
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
-
Proximity of keywords in text
In content, does the proximity of semantically related keyword matter ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics1 -
Why does our main keyword keep dropping?
Hey Guys, We've seen an alarming drop in our main keyword for our website. Our biggest driver of traffic has always been the search term 'gifts for men' which we commanded the top spot for a while, but have always been in the top 4 for. Recently (in the last 3-4 months) we dropped to 6 and as of last night we dropped down to 9th. We still rank number 2 for 'gift ideas for men'. Both search terms point to this page: GIfts For Men Nothing onsite or technically has changed, and there is consistently new content in the form of products being added almost daily. We hit a manual action back in October of last year and I'm concerned that the toxic links (that we didn't create mind you) we disavowed may have been unnaturally boosting this page and now we're dropping significantly because they're gone. Any ideas on how we can curb this concerning trend? Thanks a lot
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheGreatestGoat0 -
Super URL Keyword Re-Directs - Google Safe ?
Hi Guys Any help would be much appreciated here. Can anyone tell me if I was to use a keyword super url re-direct could it still be possible to rank high in Google ?? ?? Does Google have an issue with re-directs ?? Thanks Guys Gareth
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GAZ090 -
Discrepancy in keyword ranking from webmasters and actual ranking.
I have been tracking ranks of some keywords important to my business since the last 2 months. Recently I have observed that, for one of my keywords, google webmasters is giving the avg position as 8 but when i search in google it comes in the 6th page. I know that webmasters tools gives the average position but i do not think there will be such big difference in the ranks. Please help.Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seomoz12320 -
Fluctuating Rankings on "difficult" keywords
Hi guys, I have a client who wants to rank well for two very "difficult" keywords and eight easier ones. The easy ones are "treadmills + city" and the difficult ones are "treadmills" and "treadmill". We have got great traction on the "+city" keywords and he now ranks on page one for all those. However, we have noticed that although he ranks on page 2-3 for "treadmill" treadmills", those rankings fluctuate widely day to day. Rankings for the "+city" versions are stable, a rising slowly as I would expect. Rankings for the difficult keywords can be 235 one day, 32 the next week, 218 the day after that, then stable at 30ish for a week, then fluctuation again. I know Google update every day, but what are the likely causes of the easier keywords being stable, while the harder ones fluctuate? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stevedeane0 -
Google is ranking the wrong page for the targeted keyword
I have two examples below where we want it to rank for the targeted page but google picked another page to rank instead. This is happening a lot on this site I just recently started to work on. Example 1 Googles Choice for key word Motorcycle Tires: http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/cl/50/Tires-and-Wheels What we want Google to choice for Motorcycle Tires: http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/c/49/-/181/Motorcycle-Tires Other pages about Motorcycle tires: http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/d/12/Motorcycle-Tires We even used the rel="canonical" for this url to point to our target page. http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/c/50/-/181/Motorcycle-Tires Example 2 ATV Tires We want this page to rank http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/c/43/81/165/ATV-Tires however google has decided to rank http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/t/43/81/165/723/ATV-Tires-All that is acutally one folder under where we want it.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DoRM0 -
Keyphrase / Keyword arrangement
Hi all, What are your thoughts on the arrangement of keyphrases / words? For example, does it make a difference if the words are arranged in the following way: "Keyword 1 Keyword 2" or "Keyword 2 Keyword 1" Both ways make a phrases which is favourable in the search engines. Can I stick with 1 way or should I be going with both arrangements. Hope that is clear 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wtfi0 -
Should I redirect secondary keyword page
I have a reasonably high authority home page and have decided to optimise the home page to target a competitive keyword that previously had a specific page that was optimised on an internal page of my site that I have spent time building links to. The internal page has over 200 links to it so should I 301 redirect this internal page to the home page. Will that increase the auhority of the home page further? Or should I keep the internal page as a 'secondary' page for that keyword?. If I do have two pages don't I risk confusing google?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SamCUK0