Can Keyword-Stuffing on a Single Page Penalize My Entire Site?
-
Hi forum! I want to improve my internal linking through adding keyword-rich anchor text to my search results pages (my site has an internal search engine for products).
For example, if I were a shoes store, my product search engine results are currently:
-Running
-Hiking
-Walking
-Trackand I want to make them actual keyword-terms by changing them to:
-Running Shoes
-Hiking Shoes
-Walking Shoes
-Track ShoesThis creates a problem - the keyword "shoes" is stuffed on the page.
I don't care how well these dynamic search results pages appear in search, only the actual product pages. Is it okay to keyword stuff on these pages, or would it penalize my entire site?
-
Nice article on 'Money Keyword' Anchor text.
All of our search results links' anchor text is unique and we have over 60,000 of these pages. I am pretty sure they will be diversified enough. They are all somewhat specific, so I am pretty certain they will not match exactly what the user searches for in Google most of the time.
Another question that has come up.
For example, 2 of my pages are competing in google: A product page ranking 4th, and a dynamic search results page ranking 5th.Would no-indexing the search results page make the product page shoot up higher than 4, or is the purpose of removing competition just to guide the user more specifically where I want them?
As long as I use the the noindex tag in a robots.txt file correctly, do I have your blessing? Thanks so much!
-
OK, that's different from what I was getting from your original post (which is why it never hurts to double check). I understood it as you wanted improve your internal linking and do anchor text to help your INTERNAL search results w/in your on-site search function/search engine.
Keep in mind that too perfect anchor text can actually hurt you, too: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2172839/Google-Penguin-Update-Impact-of-Anchor-Text-Diversity-Link-Relevancy
Creating dynamic product pages will compete with your regular product pages in rankings for those shared keywords unless you no index them (not the same thing as no follow). No index means that Google can follow the link but shouldn't index it but you want page rank to be passed along to links.
I'd consider reading up on the subject of no index to confirm your comfort level with how to do this - especially since I'm trying to interpret what you want and I may not be correct and don't want to possibly hinder your goals
http://www.seoboy.com/the-differences-between-noindex-nofollow-and-robotstxt-file/
-
Hmm. Well, our main goal in the anchor text changes is to give a boost to our product pages rankings. We currently don't see very good results from either, so I am not sure if they are competing.
To rephrase my second question, if a page is not indexed in Google (probably via a tag), does link anchor text on that page have any merit?
-
Not ranking in Google won't touch what results you can serve up within your own site; as you mentioned you have your own internal search function/search engine and that's why you wanted to create this in the first place.
Also, not having them indexed in Google means they won't compete w/ your regular product pages for rankings in Google. Of course, this is assuming that I understood your goal correctly.
-
If I block my search results pages from being indexed by Google, will these new anchor text changes have any effect?
-
I absolutely agree with Andrea here and recommend blocking Google from indexing your search result pages.
-
I've had it happen to me, so it's a matter of if you want to take the risk in the first place and wait it out and hope you like the outcome.
-
I wouldn't worry about these pages being indexed. Google should automatically pick up on the URL parameters as they do with all my ecommerce clients. There are occasions where certain parameters have to be removed manually through webmaster tools, but Google is getting pretty good at deciphering this stuff on their own
-
Wanting to use long tail keywords is not really the same thing as keyword stuffing. You're just using anchor text to highlight the long tail keywords ("hiking shoes") that best describe your product vs. stuffing a page to an un-natural level with just the word "shoe" in an obvious attempt to rank for the term.
So I wouldn't fear stuffing penalties, although...depending on how crawl-able your new search page results will be, then be prepared that it can change what page ranks for what keywords unless you use a robots.txt or something to block/control search engines from accessing it. Ex: dynamic pages competing against the actual product pages for rankings for the long tail keywords.
And that's not the same thing as a penalty, that's just possibly what can happen when you make changes to content.
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
-
Pillar pages and blog pages
Hello, I was watching this video about pillar pages https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db3TpDZf_to and tried to apply it to my self but find it impossible to do (but maybe I am looking at it the wrong way). Let's say I want to rank on "Normandy bike tou"r. I created a pillar page about "Normandy bike tour" what would be the topics of the subpages boosting that pillar page. I know that it should be questions people have but in the tourism industry they don't have any, they just want us to make them dream !! I though about doing more general blog pages about things such as : Places to rent a bike in Normandy or in XYZ city ? ( related to biking) Or the landing sites in Normandy ? (not related to biking) Is it the way to do it, what do you recommend ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Can I data highlight pages that already have schema?
Hi all, I have pages with schema on but there are some gaps. Rather than ask my dev team / wait for the changes to be made, can I use the data highlighting tool in GSC to fill in these gaps? Will it let me add these and will Google generally consider both the schema and the highlighted data? To note, if I have used GSC to highlight data and then test it in Google's Structured Markup Test Tool it won't show so I understand it may be difficult to test whether it's working or not. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KJH-HAC0 -
What is the impact of an off-topic page to other pages on the site?
We are working with a client who has one irrelevant, off-topic post ranking incredibly well and driving a lot of traffic. However, none of the other pages on the site, that are relevant to this client's business, are ranking. Links are good and in-line with competitors for the various terms. Oddly, very few external links reference this off-topic post, most are to the home page. Local profile is also in-line with competitors, including reviews, categorization, geo-targeting, pictures, etc. No spam issues exist and no warnings in Google Search Console. The only thing that seems weird is this off-topic post but that could affect rankings on other pages of the site? Would removing that off-topic post potentially help increase traffic and rankings for the other more relevant pages of the site? Appreciate any and all help or ideas of where to go from here. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Matthew_Edgar0 -
If I put a piece of content on an external site can I syndicate to my site later using a rel=canonical link?
Could someone help me with a 'what if ' scenario please? What happens if I publish a piece of content on an external website, but then later decide to also put this content on my website. I want my website to rank first for this content, even though the original location for the content was the external website. Would it be okay for me to put a rel=canonical tag on the external website's content pointing to the copy on my website? Or would this be seen as manipulative?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RG_SEO1 -
Worth contributing articles to a Page Rank 1 site?
My intuition tells me that it is not going to help with any SEO link benefit by posting an article as a guest writer on a Page Rank site of #1. It's a rather new fashion content site. The article would be informative and not a sales pitch. The only link is to our url home page in the bio. I've been told that links from low page ranking sites don't help anymore. But maybe over time the site will achieve higher PR status, and then the link in it would help us? Any thoughts? Thanks! ron
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yatesandcojewelers0 -
How can Google index a page that it can't crawl completely?
I recently posted a question regarding a product page that appeared to have no content. [http://www.seomoz.org/q/why-is-ose-showing-now-data-for-this-url] What puzzles me is that this page got indexed anyway. Was it indexed based on Google knowing that there was once content on the page? Was it indexed based on the trust level of our root domain? What are your thoughts? I'm asking not only because I don't know the answer, but because I know the argument is going to be made that if Google indexed the page then it must have been crawlable...therefore we didn't really have a crawlability problem. Why Google index a page it can't crawl?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | danatanseo0 -
NOINDEX listing pages: Page 2, Page 3... etc?
Would it be beneficial to NOINDEX category listing pages except for the first page. For example on this site: http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/101/fsx-missions/ Has lots of pages such as Page 2, Page 3, Page 4... etc: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aflyawaysimulation.com+fsx+missions Would there be any SEO benefit of NOINDEX on these pages? Of course, FOLLOW is default, so links would still be followed and juice applied. Your thoughts and suggestions are much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter2640 -
How can someone not call B.S. on this site ranking 4th.
We manage a lot of sites that are around pharmaceuticals and lawsuits. I was checking a couple of the sites around the keyword: Actos Lawsuit using the keyword difficulty with serp analysis. Our sites have done very little Adwords except for first month about a year ago and we have always ranked well and the client is very happy with the results. Tonight I notice a site that is http://wikilawsuit.org/drug-recalls/actos-side-effects-bladder-cancer-actos-lawsuit/ They are ranked fourth on Google. Our url which is http://actos-lawsuit.org/ is ranked 9th?? Frankly there are several sites ranked ahead and when you look at the parameters all the way across some we are killing. But Wiki, everyone is killing and it is still fourth. I ran it in OSE and the metrics came back better, but there is at best 3 to 4 real links out of 30 domains. This is a commercial site with a contact form in right sidebar and my guess is they are selling leads to lawyers. So they are about as Wiki as Hooters. That said, we see all the talk about quality links and I am seeing a lot of sites with few quality links and lots of junk links. Should we still believe it matters? Or, is it that it matters when the sites are huge (JC Penny), etc. but not if the site is under some critical number of poor links? Looking forward to a moz Fest on this.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RobertFisher0