SEO Over-optimization
-
How do you know when your doing too much SEO?
Started back on a couple of sites in which I had done very little to no Seo.
Dont want to get an over-optimization penalty.
-
I totally agree Matt. When we take a step back and ask "do these pages look like they're written for a search engine", that allows us to start to see the unnatural patterns that come from that type of approach that's geared toward ranking and not users.
I also put a lot of emphasis on that concept though - unnatural patterns. Think about the greater web outside the small world of SEO driven sites. Is it natural for someone who has NO clue about SEO, to repetitively use the same keywords over and over in link anchor text? Absolutely not.
Apply that same rule to every other aspect of the work.
Do NOT however, throw out the principles of Information Retrieval in the process. Proper page titles, proper (and appropriate use) of keyword specific anchor text, H1s, H2s, breadcrumbs, content and topical organization -these are all CRITICAL to Information Retrieval, going back to the days of library index card systems (adapted to web content). And that's true even without SEO.
-
Ah...ok I see that point and did not obviously look at the link profile.
I am afraid I am quite cynical about the penguin update. While I appreciate that it would be difficult to create an algorithm that does a 100% good job based on what you are seeing the algorithm is quite flawed.
There were a number of things written about EDMs and how they were being punished but perhaps the fact that it is an EDM in this case helped.
-
ranking high for cowboys tickets
site does not look similar however
The backlink profile = thousands upon thousands of spam links
-
ranking high for cowboys tickets
site does not look similar however
The backlink profile = thousands upon thousands of spam links
-
For keyword cowboy tickets ?
For that term that site looks very similar to the other sites on page one? In fact for my money it is more relevant than all the national sites that are above it.
Hard to judge without knowing more details.
-
I would say they went up because:
1. some site above you were unjustly removed. It is happening. Yes this is my opinion.
2. Some really crappy sites were removed. What people say penguin was suppose to do and I support if in fact they get it sorted out to the point were the stop doing #1.
-
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...
-
Yeah they went up after Penguin - but I did not do any SEO on them in the past.
The content in the past was minimal but had more keyword stuffing.
Now im adding fresh content and removed all the keyword stufffing.
-
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
-
Content is all fresh - keywords are integrated into the content minimally
1 site is ranked #12 for main keyword Im targeting
Other sites are ranked -
29
42
49
-
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.
-
I think that the biggest risk is doing a heavy attack using keyword anchor text on inbound links.
If you avoid that along with spamming keywords in content and title tags, I think that you will be OK.
-
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
-
Us the SEOmoz on-page optimization tool to analyze your page. It will give you tips on what to change and tell you if you are keyword stuffing etc.
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
-
Seo For Amazon!
I have been working on seo for amazon and was wondering if anyone in the community can share some tips with me around seo for amazon products?
Link Building | | DavidKonigsberg1 -
Category pages ecommerce - SEO best practises
Hi there, I run an ecommerce company, www.footdistrict.com and we are trying to improve our rankings on head terms so we are optimizing our brand pages (ie http://footdistrict.com/marcas/nike.html) Note: a brand page is a category page on my store. We are adding descriptions of each category. This is great as we are adding value. On top of that, we want to add sub-categories just below the description. A sub-category is a family of items. The structure that we are trying to implement is: http://footdistrict.com/marcas/nike.html Nike History/Info of the brand Link Nike family of items A | Link Nike family of items B | Link Nike family of items C | Link Nike family of items C When you click on the first link of the left, you go to a page with all the products of that family and a title that matches the anchor of the category page. What do you think of this structure from a SEO perspective? How would you improve it? I see other ecommerce stores that use tabs or the internal search engine for these purposes. What are the benefits of each choice? Thanks and regards
Link Building | | footd0 -
Listly and SEO
We use listly quite a lot. A few of our lists get embedded in other sites. A lot of the embedded lists have links back to us. Is there any seo benefit on this, or will just one of the sites count ? Isn't this just duplicate content ? Wondering what your thoughts are.
Link Building | | MarkQJones0 -
The best way to spend 4 hours/day on offsite SEO?
I have an assistant who is able to do 4 hrs of SEO work for me every day. I don't have much onsite SEO work for him to do, and he's not skilled for social media management, so I'm thinking the best thing to have him do is manual link building. So far I've had him create a spreadsheet of more than 1,000 blogs and directories that relate to the subject matter of our websites, and had him include the domain authority of each and if they use the "nofollow" attribute on their links. Next I will have him start adding comments/submissions that include links back to our sites, starting with the highest DA sties and ones without the "nofollow" attributes. Do you agree this is the best way to have him spend his time? Are there other tasks you would highly recommend? Ryan
Link Building | | GreenHatWeb0 -
Blogs For SEO
My Competitor has a ton of different wordpress, blogger blogs. On the side bar they have link leading back to their site, how can they do this without any issues from google? Are they hiding their Ip's? Thanks!
Link Building | | TP_Marketing0 -
Ontolo vs Raven SEO Tools
Ontolo referred me to Raven in one of their videos and ended up losing by business as a link building partner. What are your experiences with these tools-either, one, both?
Link Building | | Uramark0 -
An SEO companies position
One worrying thought following a meeting with a friend in the Poker industry was when he told me he heard some rival companies tried to spam other sites with paid listings a few years ago ? Does this happen all the time ? Also could it happen in other industries ? I was worried when hearing this news and then thought about an SEO companies position in all of this. Could an SEO company be falsely blamed for this sort of behaviour ? Is it is better to cover these things in contracts with customers.
Link Building | | onlinemediadirect1 -
Is publishing press releases for SEO thorugh newswire sites as effective post panda?
Does anyone have any knowledge/thoughts on how leading newswire sites have been effected by Google's latest updates, i.e. Panda? To date this has been a method (alongside others) I have sucessfully used to build links, but the results of late have not been as good for some clients and I'm beginning to question how effective this is - so I would be very interested to hear anyone else's experiences in this area?
Link Building | | simon-1453280