Steering Clear of Keyword Stuffing
In the earliest days of search engines – before Google® introduced link analysis as the key to matching search queries with truly relevant content – keyword stuffing was one of the most commonly used forms of search engine spamming. And it often worked. Without having to worry much about the consequences, Webmasters would toss keywords into Title tags, Meta tags, page copy, etc. Eventually, the search engines figured out that keyword stuffing was all-too-easy and all-too-common and they started cracking down on it. Web sites that included blatant keyword spamming not only wouldn’t climb to the top of the rankings, they would be penalized, even removed from the engines completely.
Keyword stuffing was, and is, fairly easy for search engines to detect. Therefore, most of today’s examples of keyword stuffing are, in fact, the product of accidental or otherwise benign overusage of keywords by novice Webmasters. Those that deliberately attempt to spam the search engines have long moved on to more advanced, more subtle methods of spamming. Nevertheless, search engines tend to crack down hard on blatant keyword stuffing, and sites that are considered to be spamming are often penalized.
The good thing is that keyword stuffing is quite easy to avoid. And, even if you have accidentally squeezed too many keywords into your page content, it is easy to alleviate the problem and get yourself out of trouble with the search engines.
What Is Keyword Stuffing?
Keyword stuffing is but one of several gray-area ways in which Webmasters have attempted to tip the scales toward their own sites in the search engine rankings. These days, advanced link spamming, IP cloaking and usage of doorway pages are more commonly used. However, search engines remain acutely aware of any attempts to spam them with keyword stuffing.So what, exactly, is keyword stuffing? In a nutshell, the term covers any attempt to add keywords to various Web page elements beyond what the context renders reasonable. For example, excessive repetition of a particular word or phrase inside a Title tag, Description Meta tag or page copy almost always raises a red flag with the search engines.
Keywords can and should be used frequently in central page elements. But they should never be used at the expense of textual fluency and coherence. In other word, if the keywords break the textual flow, then you are most likely engaging in keyword stuffing. Conversely, ensuring that keywords appear frequently throughout your content is a crucial element in any successful search engine optimization campaign.
Keyword Stuffing in Title and Meta Tags
Keyword stuffing most often occurs in Web page Title tags, Meta tags and page copy.Heading tags (e.g., H1, H2, H3 tags) are also sometimes used for keyword spamming. Using invisible text to add keywords galore to a Web page was once a popular method of spamming, but this practice has been all but eradicated.
The following is an example of keyword stuffing in a Web page’s Title and Meta tags:
<head>
<title>Pottermania — A Harry Potter® Site, Harry Potter, Harry Potter</title>
<meta name="description" content="The ultimate Harry Potter site. Harry Potter. Features a wealth of Harry Potter resources, including news, message boards, reviews, and multimedia. Harry Potter.">
<meta name="keywords" content="Harry Potter, Harry Potter Merchandise, Harry Potter, Harry Potter News, Harry Potter, Harry Potter Rumors, Harry Potter, Harry Potter games, Harry Potter, Harry Potter Fan Fiction">
</head>
Note that the keyword phrase “Harry Potter” is used far beyond what the context calls for. Neither the Title nor the Description Meta tag flows naturally, as the keyword has been thrown into the context without ensuring that it appears as an integral part of the text.
In the example below, albeit allowing for more repetition than any other page element, the Keywords Meta tag must still not include such excessive keyword repetition. In fact, a keyword should only be repeated in this tag as part of a number of different phrases.
Thus: “Harry Potter, Harry Potter News, Harry Potter Merchandise” is usually OK (although the Harry Potter prefix is unnecessary for phrases two and three in this example). “Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter” is not.
Keyword Stuffing in HTML Comments
HTML comments are used to make notes in the markup and are not rendered by Web browsers. Search engine spiders treat these comments as markup and do not consider the words or phrases they contain. For example:<!-- Main Content Area -->
<table>
<tr>
<td>Harry Potter, a book written by J.K. Rowling…</td>
<!-- Harry Potter Book Harry Potter Keychain Harry Potter Store -->
Stuffing keywords or phrases into the HTML comments can also bloat the page and ultimately do more harm than good.
Keyword Stuffing in Page Copy
Keyword stuffing in page copy is a bit dicier. There really are no exact guidelines that define how much keyword usage is too much. However, as is the case with the Title and Description tags, keywords that occur inside the page copy must never interrupt or break the natural flow of the text. Rather, the keywords should appear as natural elements of the context in which they appear. This means that unless the context specifically allows it, a keyword generally shouldn’t be included in every sentence on the page. Nor should it occur multiple times within a single sentence.On the other hand; your main keywords should appear at least once in every paragraph of your page copy. And, depending on the length of the paragraphs, they can be used multiple times per paragraph.
How Much Is Too Much?
There is no finite maximum amount of allowed occurrences of a keyword in page copy. None of the top search engines reveal what they consider the ideal keyword frequency on a page. Nor do they make public how much is too much. What is permissible largely depends on the overall length and type of page text, as well as the nature of the keyword in question. The rule of thumb is that your Web pages should be built for humans, not for search engines. Search engines reward pages that include unique, informative, high-quality content. They penalize, de-list or ignore pages whose sole purpose is to gain top rankings.Most search engines provide some form of Webmaster guidelines that give you an idea of what is considered acceptable and what is not. Some examples of Webmaster guidelines are set forth below. Reading and abiding by these guidelines is highly recommended
Google Design and Content Guidelines
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769#designYahoo!® Search Content Quality Guidelines
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/deletions/deletions-05.htmlLive.com Guidelines for Successful Indexing
http://search.live.com/docs/siteowner.aspx?t=SEARCH_WEBMASTER_REF_GuidelinesforOptimizingSite.htm
What to Do if You Get in Trouble
Ideally, you should eliminate any page elements that could possibly get you in trouble with the search engines before the search engines figure out that there is a problem. But what do you do if your search engine ranking suddenly plunges and you suspect that it’s due to keyword stuffing? Well, first of all you should take a careful look at the page and try to identify any elements that might be considered problematic. Once you have figured out where the problem lies, fix it. Rewrite your page copy; rebuild your Title or Meta tags if necessary. The main thing is that you act fast.
When you have updated your content, the search engines will detect the changes the next time they crawl your site. As they examine and index the revised content, you should be able to gradually regain your ranking.
Note that if you are feeding sitemaps to Google, you can heighten the priority and/or update frequency of the revised pages, thus ensuring that the engines will shorten their crawl cycle for that or those pages.
The bottom line is that although keyword stuffing isn’t as common as it once was, you can still get yourself in serious trouble with the search engines if you use keywords too generously on your Web page. Fortunately, keyword stuffing is easily avoided. And, if you do cross the line, keyword stuffing is also easily alleviated.
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Awesome. Thanks.
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