Incoming Search Terms

[mtgconsulting]

Hi guys,

I saw a blog post recently where the author added a list of "incoming search queries" to the bottom of his post, obviously to improve the post's ranking for those terms.

On one hand, I suppose it it does help users find that post. On the other, it seems lazy and somewhat dodgy, but I haven't found any opinions on it elsewhere and have not seen this practice in my experience.

What're your thoughts? Outright search engine manipulation?

Cheers, Carlo

SCWYt

[mtgconsulting]

Glad you agree, thanks for your answers guys.

[ThompsonPaul]

My take on it is that it's good old keyword stuffing and dodgy at best.

The content is of absolutely no use to a human reader - there's no reason for them to care what other search terms led visitors to that page. And since it clearly looks like those phrases don't actually link to other articles (correct me if I'm wrong) they can't be considered "related content".

So a spammy tactic for SE manipulation only. If the site owner knows the page is targeted at those terms, he should be using them properly within the content instead of stuffing them at the end.

This is the kind of stuff Panda's been finding and killing for the past year or so. I sure wouldn't want to bet my rankings on it - and look like a douche to my readers in the process.

Paul

[SEO5Team]

Good question Carlo . If i had to handle that for the client, i would classify the links as "related content" or "related posts" which is a common practice with blogs and news oriented sites. The "incoming search queries" classification can be misleading and a direct suggestion that it is aimed at the search engine bots as opposed to the visitors.