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
-
Keyword Research and Planning Flow
Hello, First post here. I am a IT infrastructure engineer that does application and deployment work mostly, but new to SEO. That being said, I am a firm believer in demming wheel and defined process/flow charts. I have a website up, built as best practice, its a Magento CE open source Ecommerce store. After some initial research, it seems I really need to define my keywords before I start branding my landing pages and such. So i am going to have to go back and implement the keywords and evaluate. But as I am reading it seems most SEO people try their keywords in google ad words first? Then implement? I am hoping to find some flow or process sheets on how successful Keyword research is done via step by step process and evaluation. And explanations of each. How many keywords to start with per landing page, how many to try and get in the H1 headers, paragraphs, URL. How long to leave keywords in to test? Also, I am a start up company that is competing with the big boys in my market space. I know I cant compete for the big keywords in my market? What is my best strategy for getting any kind of ranking as a small business in a global market? SEO is a mysterious, intriguing thing to me! Very much reminding me of one of my favorite whimsical quotes I will leave you will now, and thanks for reading. -Alex "Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple." - Willy Wonka
Moz Pro | | iamgreenminded0 -
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 -
Crawl results on keyword rankings differ from actual search rankings
For the second week in a row, the weekly keyword rankings in my MOZ account show "not in top 50" for most keywords. However, when I check some of my rankings I still broadly have the rankings that I used to have. It seems that the MOZ crawl is experiencing some difficulties. Does anyone have suggestions how to find out what's going on? If I can't rely on the crawl outcomes, then the tool is not very useful anymore!
Moz Pro | | matteis0 -
Is there a way to export to csv the report of keyword difficulty tool?
I'm using it to create reportes on multiple keywords and I don't see an export/download button.I see that when one keyword only is searched for, you can export the serp results. I am asking about searching multiple keywords and then exporting them all with their scores.
Moz Pro | | davhad0 -
Why would the SEOMoz Page analysis pick up exact keywords used in page title and text?
Hi, I am trying to optimise this URL : www.adaptiveconsultancy.com/ecommerce/features/advanced-ecommerce with the keyword being 'advanced ecommerce' With the 'On-Page Report Card' from SEOMoz that the exact keyword isn't featured in the page title or text, but it is in there. Why would this not be picked up? Thank you in advance,
Moz Pro | | adaptiveconsultancy
M0 -
FB Shares in SEOmoz Keyword Analysis Tool
Hello everybody, I'm quite confused in how to understand "FB Shares" in SEOmoz Keyword Analysis Tool Report. As You may know, this section is under report's "Social Signals" category. Does this number counts whole FB shares of some website links by ALL FB users? Or is it a number of some website FB account posts? Some clearance would be very helpful.. The same question applies to other social signal reports: Tweets, Google+ shares. Thank You for your answer! Happy New Year!
Moz Pro | | jkundrotas0 -
How long has the keyword difficulty tool had these limits in place?
While working against a tight deadline, I was surprised to see the following message: "We're sorry. Currently we are only able to offer results for 300 keywords per user per day. Please come back tomorrow" How long has this limit been in place and is the limit listed anywhere during the signup process? I rarely use this tool for more than 10-20 keywords at a time, so I have not run into this issue before.
Moz Pro | | davidangotti0 -
Still Getting Keyword Self-Cannibalization
I used the onsite optimization and made some changes to my post, but am still getting the Self-Cannibalization mention in my results. It lists this: "Real Estate Careers | Keller Williams | Career In Real Estate" as the link that is not supposed to be there. This is not a link, but the title of the post. What am I missing?
Moz Pro | | brentmitchell0