Bolding Keywords

[JohnW-UK]

A client has just switched from us to another provider and I have been checking up on the work done and the only change they have made is to bold lots of keywords on each page - I thought this was a practice that did not work - is there any evidence of this working or not working? Any articles/proof that we are not using out dated practices as we stopped doing this ages ago and yet the new provider is doing this.

Who is right or wrong?

[EGOL]

we doubled her traffic and were just waiting for the off site seo to start to have an effect but she said it was taking too long and went somewhere else.

Hey... if bolding the keywords was a kickass method you would be seeing it EVERYWHERE!

I don't do that on my site because it gives the site a bad odor.

Don't worry so much about why she left.  Start thinking about how to handle it when she returns. These guys could build a ton of junk links for you.

If you have copies of the files when you stopped work, you will not have to search the entire site to remove the code that these people have added.

[danatanseo]

Yep, agreed on both points  Sometimes I think it's easy for us old-timers to forget that there are a lot of folks just starting out who might not have know the difference.

[JohnW-UK]

I assumed people would knew I meant !!! Personally I think it's going to be seen as over optimization and get penalized....

[danatanseo]

Hey guys, interesting thread about an old tactic.  Fresh Fire Media, I feel your pain. I was an in-house SEO for a very similar business owner who laid me off so they could dump all their marketing money into domain spamming and fake blog networks. So frustrating, but sometimes all you can do is shake your head and move on. They'll learn the hard way.

Just a note for newbies reading this thread, and this might be screamingly obvious to you web devs out there, but when people say "bold" they don't really mean the tag. This tag is deprecated and has been for many years. They mean the tag. They both visually do the same thing, but to my knowledge the tag is completely ignored by search engines, while the tag can still be a signal to a bot that the content it contains is of some particular importance to the content of the page.

Hope that helps!

[Asjad]

The Point is that You must have your Keyword in your title So If you have Keyword in your Title then It will be Bold

And I strongly believe that bolding keywords in Post Will not help SEO But yes,, Sometimes It will help users So you can do it for the users.

thanks

[GregB123]

Strangely enough, Moz's "On Page Grader" does suggest bolding your keyword at least once and actually lists the number of bolds in the row of counts at the top.

So maybe it's still a little bit effective?

[JohnW-UK]

Was looking for proof - I feel sorry for the client as the other people have mis-guided her - we doubled her traffic and were just waiting for the off site seo to start to have an effect but she said it was taking too long and went somewhere else. I have proof in analytics that we doubled the traffic and sent it her just before she left but so clients won't learn. We are a small company with a conscience and hate to see people ripped off so not trying to get her back so much as guide her and just send her some sort of proof without referring her to this post

[Asjad]

Hi Buddy,

You are Right. Bold Words have nothing to do SEO and it just looked cheesy and spammy.

So There is No Need of doing that.

Regarding New Company that Took over your Clients; Well they are trying to prove a Point that they are working hard on their website But It will not help SEO.

You can see big authorized blogs like Google official and Moz Etc and You will never see bold words So You get the answer

thanks

[JohnW-UK]

I found this but it does not really answer the question...

http://makeyourselfvisible.com/internet-marketing/seo/does-bold-text-help-seo