Is bolding keywords spammy?

[bjs2010]

It used to work for me on some sites - but maybe it's considered spammy these days?

Any feedback appreciated.

[Kononen]

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?

[jeffdude]

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.****

[irvingw]

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.

[GeorgeAndrews]

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.

[copyjack]

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.

[bjs2010]

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,!

[Chris.Menke]

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.