Avoid Keyword Stuffing in Document
-
I have been implementing changes to our site outlined by the
on-page report tool. One of the most common issues it highlighted with our site
was Avoid Keyword
Stuffing in Document. I have started reducing the number of
keywords on each page so it falls under the recommended 15. So far we haven’t
seen any positive effects from this and i am a little concerned we might be
seeing some negative effect (very early days).Has anyone else implemented this change recently and what effect
did it have?Is this recommendation more in preparation to the up and coming
update from Google that will penalise over optimised sites?Any info much appreciated
Jos Davies
-
Keyword density today is somewhat of a myth. If it is natural, then Google is very forgiving of keyword stuffing, and they have pretty good algorithms to determine what is natural or not.
With that in mind, the SEOmoz On page tools should be considered more of a guide than an absolute rule.
I could go on, but these two videos say it better than I could:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/advanced-onpage-optimization-whiteboard-friday
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-new-onpage-optimization-whiteboard-friday
-
Jos, keep an eye on other posts that relate to rankings fluctuations. A Google update is coming. Whether or not some of these observations showing on the forum radar is the initial affects of the update remains to be seen.
Be careful to panic or over-assume or you might start grabbing at straws.
-
Hi, I'm not certain at all, buts it’s the only thing that has
been changed on the page. It could be a case of Google readjusting, or not
related at all.I was just hoping to hear from users who had implemented similar changes. Hopefully by Monday the page will be back in the same position it was yesterday.
Thanks
Jos
-
Included in that count is the H1 instance of the keyword. Are you certain that keyword density is the only factor at play in your rankings?
-
3 or 4 !, I have always strugggled to get the keyword mentions that low. I'm talking about removing 7 out of 40 refrences!! I wanted to remove more but i was worried that we might see a drop (and we have). Maybe its down to somtheing else. I will be keeping a close eye over the weekend
Out of interest when you say 3 or 4, is that just body text or do you count the h1 h2 etc
Thanks again
Jos
-
Hi Jos. I've not heard of the less than 15 keyword rule. SEOmoz research tools puts the sweet spot at four. We've found 2-5 instances produce good results depending on the volume of content, competitiveness of the keyword and our domain authority. For perspective, if we have dense above the fold content we keep it to four or less. If our content goes below the fold we'll work in one or two more instances for even distribution.
-
It seems to be a bit dangerous to describe the Avoid Keyword
Stuffing in Document reccomendation as high importance if its not proven to be of benefit.Maybe its should be downgraded to an optional factor?
-
MyHolidayMarketing, I think it could be seen as removing a penalty, more than a bonus. I mean, if a website is filled with a large amount of superoptimized text it it can be penalized, if it then removes that text the malus could be removed too. So that what seems a good action is only "not to do a bad action".
If that text would be great content, using naturally that term/those terms tons of times, probably it wouldn't be penalized, on the countrary, dealing with Panda algorithm, it would be seen as a strenght for that website.
Maybe you can see the (n° keyword)/(total words) ratio to see how your content is good.
Anyone knows the correct range of values for that ratio? -
Hi Thanks for the reply, yes i remember that post and it shows the importance of the point.
I would never stuff a page with keywords, and i would like to think no self respecting content writer would, but in some cases there is only one way to describe a product and you can naturally end up with a large ammount of mentions of a particular product on one page.
I'm just not sure where the figure of 15 has come from because surely it should be more based on a percentage than an over all figure.
Anyway, i would really like to here any other examples of user users trying to stick with the under 15 keywords rule
-
If the large number of keywords were natural (An SEO agency talking about SEO in a large blog post for example, might mention it meny times naturaly) then I wouldn't worry about it.
If you have been artifically stuffing your documents with keywords, I would be more concerned about how it reads to a human long before worrying about google. People tend to not to trust obviously keyword stuffed content.
The 'keyword stuffing' has been a reccomendation long before the coming update. I do remember there being a blog post here and a similar QA question on over optimisation where removing 2-3 instances of a keyword massivly improved rankings - Showing that it has been possable to be penalised for over-optimisation for a long time now.
One of the blog posts can be found here - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/lessons-learned-by-an-over-optimizer-14730
Hope this helps.
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
-
Unsolved Make Moz reindex the pages for keywords
Hi Moz says we're 18th for a phrase but that's for the page /himonsia-generators because that was the highest ranking page. If you search now for "heavy range generators" we're jumping between 10-12th position but it's for the page /products/generators - which is correct. How can I make Moz "Reindex" the pages?
Moz Pro | | RichardAskew0 -
Unsolved Why did I stop ranking on a keyword and how will I rank on it again?
I often see in my campaigns, that keywords which ranked on a page between spot 1 to 5 on the SERP stop being ranked on that respective page, causing the website to be in the 5th page or worse on Google. I also see that the keyword is not linked to a page anymore. What causes this to happen and how can I solve this from happening in the future? Capture.PNG
Moz Pro | | Ginovdw0 -
Keyword stuffing on a shop Brand Collection Pages - would schema.org Microdata helps?
I'm setting up a Shop for a customer and have few questions about Brand Collection Pages in General. I create collection pages for the main Vendors & Designers and since I add their Brand Names on their products I have more than 40 times the Brand name on one Collection Page. When I run Moz On-Page Optimization I get a „B“ classification since Keyword stuffing for the Brand name. I put the Product Informations (brand-name, product-name, product-price) into Schema.org - Microdata and I‘m just curious what is the best practice. Don‘t using the Brand name when using Brand collection pages, using Microdata only on the product page since there starts the conversion, using Micordata whenever it is possible, doesn't matter since the overall sense of a Collection Pages is to have a lot duplicated Brand names per Page. I honestly have no idea but I just believe that Google or other search engines would appreciate if I categorize it as a Product including Brand-name and price. The other Point is, on the Collection Page I just show the Product Details when the User hover over the Image. As far as I understand, Microdata should be visible. Just showing something when hovering over an Image is that visible or not ? Or in other words, does it makes sense to use Microdata in this case? I just guess Yes since it is not totally hidden. This particular Band Name in my case is „L‘Agent“. For whatever reason Moz don‘t understand the apostrophe in L‘Agent and I get the recommendation to use the exact Keyword in the Title, what I already doing. Is there any trick or work-around on apostrophes? Here is the collection Page http://petit-paris.me/collections/l-agent-by-agent-provocateur Thanks Siggi
Moz Pro | | Siggi130 -
Search Volume for a Keyword
I assume this questions has probably been covered many times, if so I am sorry for asking it again, for whatever reason, I am not finding the answer I require, so I would appreciate some help. I would like to know the search volume for a keyword. I remember I used to get this information on Google Adwords account, it no longer displays it the same. I want to know if Moz or even Google for that matter provide this tool in a simple way. So if I entered a keyword, I would get the volume of searches Globally as well as locally either on a per month or a per day basis and it would be broken down as exact match or broad etc. This was a great feature before. I would love to access the same thing again. Thanks you.
Moz Pro | | RyanShahed0 -
Tool to find compeitor keyword overlap?
I want to know which competitors rank for the same things I do. Is there a tool that can give me this info?
Moz Pro | | ShearingsGroup0 -
What search engines does SEOMoz pull the SERP data from on the keyword analysis report?
I did a Google search and I noticed that some of the rankings that pulled up did not match the SEOmoz top 1-10 competitors. I was sure not to include personal results. I was completely signed out of my Google account. Another one of the SEO tools showed the same result as when I did the Google search, completely different from SEOmoz's report. I am curious to know where the data comes from, so I can accurately compare/ contrast the varying results.
Moz Pro | | JMFieldMarketing0 -
Checking multiple keywords in Rank tracking
Besides the rankings in the campaigns i want to check 100+ keywords at once in rank tracking. Is this possible and if not why? It says i can check 400 keywords a day but manually entering them is time consuming and that's exactly why i use SEOMOZ, to save time.
Moz Pro | | FindFactory1 -
Is there a keyword suggestion tool available in the SEOMOZ suite of tools?
Is there a keyword suggestion tool available in the SEOMOZ suite of tools that is similar to semrush.com? semrush allows you to put in a URL and then will tell you what keywords you rank for. Looking for a good tool that is similar.
Moz Pro | | webestate0