Avoid Keyword Stuffing in Document
-
I have been implementing changes to our site outlined by the
on-page report tool. One of the most common issues it highlighted with our site
was Avoid Keyword
Stuffing in Document. I have started reducing the number of
keywords on each page so it falls under the recommended 15. So far we haven’t
seen any positive effects from this and i am a little concerned we might be
seeing some negative effect (very early days).Has anyone else implemented this change recently and what effect
did it have?Is this recommendation more in preparation to the up and coming
update from Google that will penalise over optimised sites?Any info much appreciated
Jos Davies
-
Keyword density today is somewhat of a myth. If it is natural, then Google is very forgiving of keyword stuffing, and they have pretty good algorithms to determine what is natural or not.
With that in mind, the SEOmoz On page tools should be considered more of a guide than an absolute rule.
I could go on, but these two videos say it better than I could:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/advanced-onpage-optimization-whiteboard-friday
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-new-onpage-optimization-whiteboard-friday
-
Jos, keep an eye on other posts that relate to rankings fluctuations. A Google update is coming. Whether or not some of these observations showing on the forum radar is the initial affects of the update remains to be seen.
Be careful to panic or over-assume or you might start grabbing at straws.
-
Hi, I'm not certain at all, buts it’s the only thing that has
been changed on the page. It could be a case of Google readjusting, or not
related at all.I was just hoping to hear from users who had implemented similar changes. Hopefully by Monday the page will be back in the same position it was yesterday.
Thanks
Jos
-
Included in that count is the H1 instance of the keyword. Are you certain that keyword density is the only factor at play in your rankings?
-
3 or 4 !, I have always strugggled to get the keyword mentions that low. I'm talking about removing 7 out of 40 refrences!! I wanted to remove more but i was worried that we might see a drop (and we have). Maybe its down to somtheing else. I will be keeping a close eye over the weekend
Out of interest when you say 3 or 4, is that just body text or do you count the h1 h2 etc
Thanks again
Jos
-
Hi Jos. I've not heard of the less than 15 keyword rule. SEOmoz research tools puts the sweet spot at four. We've found 2-5 instances produce good results depending on the volume of content, competitiveness of the keyword and our domain authority. For perspective, if we have dense above the fold content we keep it to four or less. If our content goes below the fold we'll work in one or two more instances for even distribution.
-
It seems to be a bit dangerous to describe the Avoid Keyword
Stuffing in Document reccomendation as high importance if its not proven to be of benefit.Maybe its should be downgraded to an optional factor?
-
MyHolidayMarketing, I think it could be seen as removing a penalty, more than a bonus. I mean, if a website is filled with a large amount of superoptimized text it it can be penalized, if it then removes that text the malus could be removed too. So that what seems a good action is only "not to do a bad action".
If that text would be great content, using naturally that term/those terms tons of times, probably it wouldn't be penalized, on the countrary, dealing with Panda algorithm, it would be seen as a strenght for that website.
Maybe you can see the (n° keyword)/(total words) ratio to see how your content is good.
Anyone knows the correct range of values for that ratio? -
Hi Thanks for the reply, yes i remember that post and it shows the importance of the point.
I would never stuff a page with keywords, and i would like to think no self respecting content writer would, but in some cases there is only one way to describe a product and you can naturally end up with a large ammount of mentions of a particular product on one page.
I'm just not sure where the figure of 15 has come from because surely it should be more based on a percentage than an over all figure.
Anyway, i would really like to here any other examples of user users trying to stick with the under 15 keywords rule
-
If the large number of keywords were natural (An SEO agency talking about SEO in a large blog post for example, might mention it meny times naturaly) then I wouldn't worry about it.
If you have been artifically stuffing your documents with keywords, I would be more concerned about how it reads to a human long before worrying about google. People tend to not to trust obviously keyword stuffed content.
The 'keyword stuffing' has been a reccomendation long before the coming update. I do remember there being a blog post here and a similar QA question on over optimisation where removing 2-3 instances of a keyword massivly improved rankings - Showing that it has been possable to be penalised for over-optimisation for a long time now.
One of the blog posts can be found here - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/lessons-learned-by-an-over-optimizer-14730
Hope this helps.
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
-
Finding all search terms/keywords
Hi everyone! Is there a report I can run on SEOMoz that will show all of the search terms that people are using to find my site? I want to analyze where I am doing well and where I can use some work, but I'd like to have that as a starting point. Thanks in advance!
Moz Pro | | JodiFTM0 -
Why does SEO MOZ Pro scan your competitors keyword rankings?
I find the keyword rankings feature of SEOmoz Pro probably it's most useful feature. I was wondering why you can't see your listed competitors stats in comparison?
Moz Pro | | AndyMcSherry0 -
Keyword Self-Cannibalization Message
Hi, I am receiving the following message in my on-page report card: Avoid Keyword Self-Cannibalization However, I cannot find a link with the relevant anchor text on that specific page? I am using Wordpress and it is a page not a post so there are no tags. Hmmmm.... I'm confused - too many glasses of red wine?
Moz Pro | | thehopefactory0 -
Can I specify a url for a keyword in the rank checker tool?
Hello! I'm new to seomoz and excited to learn the system. I created a campaign and added keywords but I'm not clear how the seomoz campaign rankings tool works. As an example, one of my keywords 'cigar cutters' is reporting at position 20 for url http://www.cheaphumidors.com/c_guillotine-cutters.html. However, I think it would be better target to focus that keyword on http://www.cheaphumidors.com/c_cutters.html. as a search for 'cigar cutters' could encompass either a guillotine cutter, punch cutter or cigar scissors. Is there any way to assign http://www.cheaphumidors.com/c_cutters.html to the term 'cigar cutters' in the campaign ranking report? Brian
Moz Pro | | davesabot0 -
Why have my rankings dropped on my keyword report but there is no change for the same keywords on google??
I received a keyword ranking report over the weekend, was horrified to see some of my keywords have dropped ranks by 20+ for some 😮 I checked them on google and they haven't moved (confused.com) Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Moz Pro | | Anthonykal-group0 -
How many times to repeat the exact keyword?
I'm curious what the suggested number of times is for including an EXACT keyword in a document, OTHER than in the page title, h1 and alt text? What does SEOMoz advocate for this? Bonus credit: What is the consensus on "stop words"? I've read the the search engines ignore these, yet searching for the same query with or without them produces vastly different results... So should they not always be included in one's keyword optimization, above?
Moz Pro | | staingurus0 -
Why are SEOmoz Pro Keyword Ranking reports different between two 301-linked URLs?
Hi, My main domain is www.dancenut.com. I have this 301 URL redirected to www.dancenut.com/boston/. I set up an SEOmoz Pro campaign for each of these URLs in order to see if they were being treated differently in any way. In most cases the report results are identical, or the small differences are understandable. However, there is one big difference between the two sets of campaign reports. In the Keyword Ranking reports, the data for the Bing and Yahoo! reports are identical, but the data for the Google reports are dramatically different. Out of 21 keywords, 9 are listed in the top 50 for www.dancenut.com, but only 2 are listed in the top 50 for www.dancenut.com/boston/ (the specific positions are the same for the 2 keywords that are listed for both). Does this make any sense? Could the SEOmoz Pro data be wrong? If not, then I'm suspicious that Google may not be interpreting the 301 redirect properly. I don't think this could be fully explained by a 1-10% reduction in link juice due to the 301 because I have one keyword for which my site ranks #1 in Google, Bing, and Yahoo! with www.dancenut.com, but it doesn't even rank in the top 50 in Google with www.dancenut.com/boston/. And why would these differences only exist for Google? Any insight would be much appreciated! Andrew
Moz Pro | | dancenut0 -
Why Do Domain Link Metrics Differ in Keyword Difficulty Report vs OpenSiteExplorer
If anyone could shed some light on this that would be great. It seems as if the two tools are using different versions of the database?
Moz Pro | | belasco0