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Hi Colin,

This Q&A from a few days ago addresses this issue, the implications and how you can fix it easily - http://www.seomoz.org/q/duplicate-page-error

This should help!

There is no set answer for this in relation to a specific size - Google released some statistics a while ago and the average page size was 320kb, I remember reading. What I would say though is that you need to concentrate on load times, so make your page as small as possible whilst serving the content how you want it to be, so it loads quickly. Check how quickly you pages load using Google Webmaster Tools as an indicator - though remember this is taking an average from a sample of visits.

And here is a link to a YouMoz post that is very helpful in guiding you through optimizing your page speed - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/optimizing-page-speed-actionable-tips-for-seos-and-web-developers

Hope this helps.

You need to look at increasing your site authority, so I would start thinking how can you get links to the pages that rank for your keywords and your site as a whole. I would start thinking of ways that you can create content that gets visitors to keep coming back and spread the word to others. Social media is an excellent channel to start building up your relationships with authority/influencers who are related to your niche, by interacting with them on social channels you will eventually be able to put your content in front of them and this will lead to increased exposure and links.

When people ask this question I always say that you should consider a blog if you think you can build a decent one as part of your site and its niche. A blog requires hard work and you must persevere in keeping the posts coming in order for it to become successful. When creating a blog I would also suggest thinking about asking people to guest post on your blog especially those related to your industry who have a good following already.

You also want to think about ways you can create content such as how-to guides and videos. There are lots of good methods out there and I would suggest you search for link building on here to gain a more in depth insight.

Essentially what I would say is remember - great content + exposure = links

links = increase in site authority and in turn ranking.

Obviously make sure you also have all the on page factors in place for any content h1 headers, page titles, etc, oh and a good internal link structure for your site.

Hope this gives you some food for thought...

Yes if you just want to redirect individual pages like that - you could have it so any requests on the domain www and none redirect to the new domain and then specific pages can point to specific pages - see below:

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^olddomain.co.uk$ [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.olddomain.co.uk$

RewriteRule ^/?$ "http://www.newdomain.co.uk" [R=301,L]

RewriteRule ^page2.html$ "http://www.newdomain.com/page2.html" [R=301,L]

RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^olddomain.co.uk$ [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.olddomain.co.uk$

RewriteRule ^/?$ "http://www.newdomain.co.uk" [R=301,L]

Add this to your .htaccess file of your oldsite and it will redirect both www. and none www. to your new domain passing on link juice - sorry I wasn't specific before.

Hi Simone

I think this will help solve your problem -

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/url-rewrites-and-301-redirects-how-does-it-all-work

and how to actually do it -

http://www.webconfs.com/how-to-redirect-a-webpage.php/

You will only need to create the redirect in the old domains htaccess file so that all traffic to the old domain will go to the new one.

No mention of any on-page optimisation or strategies and the use of blog post comments I would be very careful if I were you....

I think you are going to struggle ranking well for multiple terms in relation to a one page website. I would even go as far as to say how much value does a 1 page website give to a browser? You could argue that it provides them with exactly what they are looking for. However I would say a site with several pages will allow you to rank for multiple keywords better concentrating on one for each page and then you could actually end up with a better link profile as you can push each individually rather than purely the one page. You might gain decent links to several pages rather than limiting it to just one. I would always stick to the principle that Google is looking for over-optimized and spammy pages, since Penguin especially. How over-optimised is a page likely to look if it is targeting multiple keywords, potentially using all the on-page factors? Also then when Google finds it is a single page it will set alarm bells off if you ask me – this site is just there to rank for these terms and serves no real value. Put the time in to develop an information rich site that really serves the purpose you intend it to well and is not a shortcut for search engine ranking. You are more likely to rank well and get links from decent sites/authorities if you go about it in this way I think.

Well for a 301 redirect you can add the redirect to your .htaccess file. However I have never used Xsitepro to build a site but I assume you have access to the code behind the pages in which case you can place a canonical tag in the header of your index.html instead of the 301 redirect.

See this link on duplicate content and an explanation of the canonical tag is in there -

http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/duplicate-content

Hi Benjamin - have a look at this Q&A from a few days ago, it will help you correct this.

http://www.seomoz.org/q/duplicate-page-error

You are diluting your homepage strength as you could have some links to one version of the page and some to another. I would create a 301 redirect from the /index to the plane .com version. In Googles eyes you have two pages with the same content, this is a common mistake with a lot of websites and their homepage.

For more info read:

http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/duplicate-content

http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/url-rewrites-and-301-redirects-how-does-it-all-work

Well I am assuming all your sites internal links are already pointing to the original product page, so in relation to this, as long as you don't create any internal links pointing to your duplicate friendly URL for offline you will be fine and implementing it as DR Pete instructs. Canonical links should be on all pages that are duplicates of the target page which is part of the canonical tag.

I don't think you need to remove this Gary if that is the case - take a look here for an updated 2012 article on rel="canonical" from the horses mouth

- http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394

This might help you.

I have been in a similar situation myself and it is a judgement call - I always tend to air on the side of caution. How I look at it with a lot of the paid directories is the fact that they aren't purposefully manipulating search doesn't mean they aren't going to be hit at some point and when they are you don't really want to be associated with it in my opinion. A lot of business directories purely exist on customers paying for entry and advertising and are not therefore overly concerned with their SEO.

You could, as I have done, ask to talk to their development team/technical - you could also analyse whether they are using no follows on links and ask for examples of their white label sites. Depends how much time you want to put into it and whether you think it could be truly worth using them if you weren't endangering your SEO work..

I would create a 301 redirect from your new short URL to your original product page as you are essentially just creating a new path to it and not new content.

Here is a post about canonicalisation from Matt Cutts - http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-url-canonicalization/

And another useful insight from SEOMoz on how to deal with duplicate content - http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/duplicate-content

Hope this helps

Blurbpoint is also correct using his method will also work - blocking the page in a robots.txt file or using the meta-tags no index, no follow will also stop duplicate content issues! The down side is that any links that your short URL acquires will not pass any link juice unlike with 301s or canonicalization.

I would stay away Luke because they are:

1. Likely to be low value.

2. If they have links between their directories this is basically a link network and you don't want any part of it.

3. With link profiles being under more scrutiny than ever and spam link tactics are being monitored more thoroughly you are likely to suffer a punishment from Google because this would strike as a clear attempt at manipulation of search rankings.

The penguin will be visiting.

These are my thoughts and I wouldn't risk it if I were you - plus I definitely wouldn't pay for the privilege!!

I would create separate pages for each of the jewellery shop locations and then look a tailoring them to targeting those locations in relation to the search engines. Make sure you create a menu structure that points to your shop pages with related location anchor text.

Also make sure your url structure for each store is something like -

www.domain.com/(location)jewellery.html

or

www.domain.com/(location)jewelleryshop.html

I would look at creating unique content for each location through the use of testimonials of customers, maybe get the staff to write some content for their individual store. There is so much you can do to make each of these shops rank well for their locations using this method - I have used it successfully myself in a different niche. Look at gaining community following on your social sites for each individual store - I would really target the community aspect for something of this size.

Remember it is important to gain decent links so here is a Q&A that might help give you ideas...

http://www.seomoz.org/q/drowning-in-a-sea-of-link-building-advice

Hope this helps

I have content which is dated and several years old but still ranking for relatively competitive terms on the first page top 3 results and have seen increases in the last few months for ranking. I would however be wary of putting a date on content, as you rightly mention, as most people including you and I will do a search for information and if the date is clear in the SERPs and it hasn't been published recently then you don't click on it. In terms of this I would not be as concerned about the SEO but more the user engagement / CTR.

Hi Ioan,

If I were you I would concentrate on the location and the fact that it is wedding photography. I worked on SEO for a friend who has a wedding car business and he ranks very well for location and service specific searches using the same technique - we didn't brand the titles as his meta descriptions and web address clearly did this for him in the SERPs.

Using this technique you can cover more specific and gain long tail keyword traffic - you can have titles such a

wedding photography (location)

photos from x's wedding in (location)

Wedding photographs at (location)

There are so many variants and possibilities you can cover...

Hope this helps!

Hi Sarah

If you can’t create unique content yourself have you thought about ways in which you could have unique content created quickly and easily so it doesn’t take years? How about encouraging customers to review the service that they have got and their experience in the location they hired from? You could do this by opening up a discount on your next hire or probably more practically a free entry into a prize draw for something that will tempt them to create a review?

This is a tricky one if you want to keep ranking for all your locations but I think it is possible and something that is worth giving time to in order to experience results you have previously...

Hi Benjamin - it looks like you have a real challenge - you could drop your branding to help cut the size down as Irving suggested, however you are still going to have an issue with books that have long titles, as I am sure you have numerous that surpass 70 characters. In this situation I think you will just have to exceed it as this has to be the case for your competition as well - anyone selling books is likely to have long page titles. Have you checked your competitions tactics? I would have a look at Amazon if I were you...

I would say that it is important to make sure you have title tags that stick to the 70 characters or less rule - here is some findings in relation to this by SEOMoz which I think you will find very interesting and current (only published a couple of weeks ago) - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/long-title-tags

Hope this helps - I think you could look at stripping the common words out as long as your page title is still clear, makes sense and an appropriate label for your page.

To combat this Sam have you thought about having your top level of navigation broad match such as counties in UK and then when the user selects the county from the menu they are presented with a page that lisst the cities and towns, thus cutting down the number of links in the navigation on your homepage, then you can still create pages for your desired locations. I have done something similar in another niche..

I have found users don't mind having to take one extra step to narrow down their search - I think it would only be a real issue if you start requiring 3+ clicks to get to their desired information/page.

Hi John,

Penguin is the over-optimization update which is looking for sites that are engaging in tactics purely to rank highly in Google. Google are always looking at ways that they can improve the quality of their search results to keep them ahead of the game and penguin has been designed to look for webspam or those that are overtly SEOing their websites to rank better, tactics include keyword stuffing, link schemes, doorway pages and more. In relation to link profiles they are under more scrutiny than ever and link schemes can be creating link networks to boost your site, using low quality link tactics such as forum and blog comments and having a high concentration of links with exact match anchor text. Also link profiles with lots of links from sites that aren't in their niche as this is clearly unnatural.

SEOs need to concentrate on building quality sites which serve the purpose they are intended for and have excellent usability. Here is Googles take on Penguin in their own words - http://insidesearch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html

Also for more details on Penguin and the specific tactics it is looking at in relation to SEO and over-optimization take a look here - http://searchengineland.com/google-launches-update-targeting-webspam-in-search-results-119295

I hope this helps answer your question - concentrate on building great content with relevant on page optimization clearly using best practice and not keyword stuffing, then make sure you are getting this content exposure using tactics such as social media, but not dodgy tactics to gains links such as forum, blog comments and anywhere else that allows people to create any link for a links sake and you will be fine, in my opinion. A few reciprocal links are fine and natural but don't engage in a practice where you are reciprocal linking to unrelated sites which giving a link to won't enrich the users browsing experience.

I have found to some extent that this is natural, however in order to combat this with one of the sites that I work on we have made sure that the exposure, especially through social media has been staggered, not hitting everything at once, so that it has been clear to search engines that the fresh content is still important in relation to the terms that it is ranking for. I have also produced content related to this in the form of a series clearly linking to the original so that every time one of the pieces of new content get traffic, links and social recognition so does the original piece showing that it still has relevance in the current rankings. I have found this has worked and we have kept pieces ranking like this.

Update- the bug appears to have been fixed and I am getting the right results with this segment  and when I export it.

I would look at ways that you can create some great content that will enrich your current site, from what you have put there appears to be a lot of scope. You need to think about how you can gain links in order to be able to increase your ranking for targeted keywords. I would definitely think about your idea of a blog and invite guest posts/ reviews from current users of your free football game or even better industry authorities (well known gamers/reviewers). This will help increase interaction on your website and this will lead to increased traffic and more links. Think about incorporating how-to guides which can be both written and video based recording actions from game play etc. I would also concentrate on building up your social presence and make sure you look at building relationships with social influencers such as well- known game reviewers/gaming sites and publications. Building these relationships will help increase your exposure as you can make them aware of any new content on the site you are now doing SEO for and this in turn will lead to them pushing it to their followers which will again increase traffic and links will come. As we all know these links will increase your sites authority in the eyes of the search engines and you will gain ranking and search visits from none branded keywords. Hope this helps!!

I agree with Stefan - it would appear that it costs $50 every time you sit the test - this is a very useful article by slingshot SEO and it mentions the cost of the exam and resitting - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-analytics-certification-how-to-pass-the-gaiq-test

Hi Peter,

I have two websites that are in the same niche on different hosts, but under the same Google Account for Analytics and Webmaster Tools which have links to each other. The links are branded and not keyword anchored and I haven't found this to cause any negative impact in the SERPs.

In my opinion, as you mentioned, it is natural for the two to link and the most important thing about link profiles is that they look natural and not manipulated especially post penguin! Hope this helps!

Hi Jeremy,

I think you need to look at links to your website now, just because you have got a grade A with your on page factors you need to now gain links to this well optimized content to show Google its worthiness of ranking well. I would suggest looking at the different link building strategies to get some ideas on where to improve things. Gaining links will increase your sites authority which will help it to improve in the rankings on Google. Also remember when building links it is about quality rather than quantity in this climate. Also remember just because your site has a grade A from the ranking tool does this grade A look natural or does it look over optimised for the keyword you are targeting?

here is a good Q&A on link building - http://www.seomoz.org/q/drowning-in-a-sea-of-link-building-advice

There are lots more on the this section and the blog if you have a search.

Hope this helps!

Glad I could help weblion,

Malcolm that is a 301 redirect using .htaccess that you have written - the second link on my response shows you the different ways to go about implementing a 301 redirect including your method, which I have personally used on sites.

Not all web servers are compatible with 301 redirects using .htaccess, so I would definitely look at the different options for which best fits in with your setup.

Setup a 301 redirect (permanent) from site.com to www.site.com. You might find this guide useful - http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection

And this will show you all the different ways of creating a 301 redirect - http://www.webconfs.com/how-to-redirect-a-webpage.php

Hi Zach,

Whether it is local or international the process for gaining quality links is the same you need to create great quality content and then you need to make sure that it gains the right exposure. This will bring you the quality links you desire to increase your sites rankings. There are lots of methods for creating decent content, such as product/service reviews, blogs including promoting guest blogging from authorities in your niche, examples of work you have carried out (case studies), content curation (see SEOMoz Blog)  and more.

To gain exposure it is important to interact with as many potential customers and also others involved in your niche as possible, this is where social networking comes in. Building up your social following and then interacting and building relationships with authority figures that are related to your niche will allow you to expose them to your content through passing on links through tweets etc. If you have built a good relationship this will cause your social followers to share it to their own network and then you will gain increased exposure which will lead to likes, G+'s, tweets and links from other sites. It is important to make sure you include social bookmarking on your websites to help facilitate this. If you are blogging and you have built relationships with authority figures you can then ask them to create a guest post on your blog - you might need to offer an incentive. They will bring the attention of their followers with them which will lead to more exposure and links - improving the authority of your site.

For local SEO it is so important to network online and identify local influencers as this will bring you business - I have found that social networking allows the online word of mouth about decent local business to happen an a much quicker rate - this is flourishing!

I hope this helps - one suggestion is you look into the link building discussions on here for more ideas.

Sounds like a good suggestion to me and if it works for hangers then I think you must be on to a winner. I haven't used Pinterest much, but I think your recent post on the blog is a good example of its potential - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/a-small-success-story-inspired-by-seomoz-and-its-contributors

Thanks for sharing Aran

Cheers Aran, you are right maybe I should have  spelled that one out a bit more, however I envisaged and have found from personal experience that when creating content on your site you would need to share links to that content to your social networks (this is the exposure part) and then this will bring you likes, tweets and also links from other sites.

In utilising social networking as an effective way of gaining exposure for your content you will always gain your likes, tweets, etc if carried out effectively don't you think?

I guess the important thing here is to make sure you have enabled social sharing on your sites pages!

You are also right this will be a long process but anything worth having always takes time and effort.

Hi Jack,

To increase your Domain and Page Authority you need to increase links to your website and in particular your homepage if you want to increase that specifically. To do this you need to think how can you create some decent content that is link worthy and then you need to make sure it gains exposure so that it will start to gain links. There are lots of ways that you can increase your link profile using things such as:

• In depth product reviews,
• A blog (consider encouraging and rewarding guest bloggers that are authorities in your niche as they will have a strong, relevant following),
• How to videos in relation to your products and how they might come in when carrying out a task for instance,
• Content curation is also an idea (some decent articles on this on SEOMoz).

Now for the exposure; best place to start is to build up your social networks and start to interact and form relationships with people that are likely to have an interest in your products, in particular those that are authorities in your niche/product area. Then when you have built relationships with them you can expose them to your new content, which will then hopefully get passed on to their social following and through this you will start to gain links and more attention slowly establishing yourself as an authority in the process - win win situation!

If you do this and work hard at it your DA and PA will increase as you want it to. Just remember that when you are building links in a post penguin world don't over do the anchor text and always go for quality links over quantity, don't start using dangerous methods, such as forum signature and blog comments. Hope this helps - Good Luck!

Here is a link to some more thoughts and details in a Q&A about link building - http://www.seomoz.org/q/drowning-in-a-sea-of-link-building-advice

Hi - here is what Matt Cutts has to say on the subject -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXt23AXlJJU

And in regards to international SEO I think this whiteboard friday should help:

- http://www.seomoz.org/blog/international-seo-where-to-host-and-how-to-target-whiteboard-friday

I would definitely alter the about us page to an exact match so that your title tags for the homepage and about us page are not identical/duplicate.

Hi Nicola

I would consider building links to these other pages, such as about us page, to increase their ranking power for a term. your about us page is indexed in order to appear in the serps so if it is ranking for another term then this will still be the case. Changing the title on the homepage will just increase it's relevance for that term and you can have multiple pages satisfying a search, so I would worry. I have several keywords that have multiple pages ranked for the same search - one hasn't replaced the other.

It is difficult to rank one page for too many keywords as it tends to dilute things. When I have been targeting local search results I have always created separate pages purely devoted to that location and then I have created decent content on the page targeting that location/keyword combination. Then I have gone after links for those pages in order to help them ranking more successfully. I know the customers that your client is targeting are different to the ones that will benefit from a how-to guide for instance correct lighting or how to use flash properly. However you are likely to gain links from photography related sites which will improve you link profile and relevance to its niche - photography so this will definitely help you increase your rankings.

When you go after links just make sure you don't over do the anchor text as link profiles are under more scrutiny than ever in a post penguin world. Building decent content and gaining exposure will lead to you beating these other sites for more competitive keywords - I would work hard go down this route especially if they haven't as you will build a site that is an information resource for photography and in turn promote your clients work - you will be on to a winner!

Hope this helps!

I have always found the more specific your title tag is the higher the ranking is for that particular term, so it would make sense to include the term London on your homepage title tag with the correct keyword order.

Your homepage will, most likely, carry more authority in terms of links than your about us page as with most websites the most links usually point to the homepage, so making your on-page optimization for the term Portrait Photographer London more concentrated/location specific should lead to a higher ranking for that term than your about us page for starters.

As far as ranking top 3 for Portrait Photographer I have found that making my titles and other on page factors more specific that with time and hard work I have eventually ranked for the less specific. For this I would concentrate on building great content and making sure it gains exposure using methods such as social media, then there is no reason why with time, hard work and dedication you can't make it so. Do you already produce how-to guides for photography - this could be through written and video guides? I would use this to build you clients reputation as an authority online. Sharing some of your clients expertise is a good thing and will lead to gained exposure without it being at the detriment to their business if done correctly!How is your social media going - are you building up a good following and does you client interact with authority figures in your niche so you can gain exposure for your site and content created?

Hi Jay,

You need to add quality content but make sure that this content receives exposure through channels such as social media. To add authority to your site you need to build your link profile up, but you must be very careful when doing this in a post penguin world as link profiles are under more scrutiny than ever. Make sure you focus on quality over quantity and definitely be careful you don't build too many links that have exact match anchor text. You need to focus on drawing people to your site and wanting to read your content to become an authority. I would really work hard at building a strong following on social media channels and I would work hard at building relationships and interaction between you and social influencers/authorities related to your niche. Once you establish such relationships you can then expose them to your content and then this will help gain exposure for your content, as they will hopefully talk about your content, starting discussions related to it and also making their followers aware of it through retweets for example. This will lead to people more people linking to your content and in turn increasing your sites authority.

N.B I also think creating a blog for your site and encouraging guest posts from relevant social influencers is a great way to build links and authority for your site as they bring an audience/following with them.

Hope this helps give you some ideas for building your sites authority. I would suggest looking at link building Q&As for more excellent ideas from the community. You might also like to consider content curation...

Yeah it should handle things but your Dutch server is for more powerful. What do you think to looking at your crawl stats and site performance in GWT? I have the suspicion there will be a difference..

Hi Carl,

So your Dutch server is essentially stand alone and your UK servers are VPS so sharing resource on a single server although acting as virtual machines, so what is the spec on the VPS? I think that this could make a difference, the one thing that I have definitely experienced is a spike in pages crawled and kilobytes downloaded in Google Webmaster Tools when my sites load speed has improved. This obviously has impact on the amount of pages that Google is able to crawl/re-crawl and index. Have you tested your site load speed when you have changed the domains over? If you are still checking this out I would go to Google Webmaster Tools and analyse your site performance and the crawl stats for your domain if you know when you were using both server setups for further clues! Let me know if you have found there is a difference as this is very interesting. Your Dutch servers performance experienced by Googlebot when crawling your content might be far better than your UK setup. Remember just because your site may appear to be loading as quickly when you browse on either it is not necessarily performing the same for every visit throughout the day.

Hope this helps!

Good quality content is always important no matter what you are targeting when it comes to SEO.

Remember -

great content + exposure = links

More links leads to an increase in search engine ranking, but remember when link building always go for quality over quantity (don't lose site of this and go for any spammy low quality link). Links essentially show search engines that people place value on that website or webpage as an information source for browsers, this applies to and is important for any type of business when it comes to search engine ranking. The more decent quality links you have the more weight your site has in the eyes of the search engines!

Max has put forward some good suggestions in relation to a blog and what value can be gained from it for your friend's site.

Remember decent content helps to add value to a website enriching the experience for visitors so I would get working on some if I were you.

This link to a previous Q&A has some more suggestions relating to link building that you may want to utilize:

http://www.seomoz.org/q/drowning-in-a-sea-of-link-building-advice

A website needs links like a car needs fuel when it comes to search engine ranking, however as Bryan has pointed out it is important to focus on quality rather than quantity. I just thought I would add some information on link building that may give you some ideas -

http://www.seomoz.org/q/drowning-in-a-sea-of-link-building-advice

 - I would read all the responses as there are some ideas in there that might help you..

In regards to social media it sounds like your followers are increasing, however how are you finding your interaction with authority figures/ influencers as these relationships will help gain exposure - you might even be able to persuade them to produce a guest post for you if you decide to go down the blog route on your website.

Well then I would say you are on the right lines - keep up the good work and as I mentioned look how you can build you sites authority online through positive link building efforts - as this will help with your rankings...

Have they seen an increase or decrease in ranking over the past few weeks? From what you have written it sounds like you are going about it in the right way. Just be careful with you link profile as Egol has mentioned, but do work on gaining exposure through means such as social media etc - refer to advice on link building given throughout the SeoMoz blog and on recent Q and A's

I think you are right Egol - link profiles are under more scrutiny than ever and that is where the biggest risk of gaining a penalty lays.

Spend time and create decent content rather than spammy keyword laden pages - I have seen you push this point many times on here and elsewhere.

I also think people can take a big clue as to the quality of their content from their bounce rates and time on page stats - pages ranking for keywords but having a relatively high bounce rate and a low time on page.

The best way to think of this is as follows:

Do your pages look like they are written for a visitor or a search engine? Is it clear to any visitor that you are aiming for a certain keyword on your page and that you have created your page for this purpose alone, if so I would look at rewriting things to make them look more natural. I have found that it is fine to optimize all the on-page factors but you need to make sure that you are clearly creating a site that serves quality information but contains the keyword you are targeting rather than just aiming at that keyword. Be good but not perfect.

How I look at it is Google wants to serve the most relevant content for a search term so they are not going to penalize a site that clearly fulfills this with decent relevant content even if the page is well optimized for a keyword. Yes Matt Cutts has said that they are leveling the playing field for overly optimized websites - however I don't see them doing this a the expense of the quality of Google's index so just make sure you are creating a decent information rich site and not a spammy keyword bucket!

Now is a time when those that have worked hard and spent time creating content are being rewarded.

I think this post by Matt Cutts highlights the ever increasing importance of creating decent content in relation to over optimization - http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html