Is bolding keywords spammy?
-
It used to work for me on some sites - but maybe it's considered spammy these days?
Any feedback appreciated.
-
I think it might be possible to get penalty from bolding. I started to appear/disappear yesterday with my both main keywords on homepage. It kept doing that every few mins until today, disappeared and not any signals to come back. Both keywords was bolded in the first paragraph. Keyword density is ok.
My backlink anchors are fine and i don't think it is because of them. Still, made some moves and changed exact match keywords to my domain/url ones on some websites.
Homepage is still ranking for its other keywords, where is also those main keywords inlcuded as a long tail ones. So everything else seems to be good at the moment. I wonder if i manage to come back soon.. Any thought?
-
I occasionally use rather to highlight a phrase or a word, I don't think it has much influence on SEO, I would never simply bold keywords for SEO sake.. If it's really that important I'll make it a heading and give it a
****to
tags, which will factor much better.****
-
I beleive it is an easy factor for google to take into account when looking at a page for SEO over optimization so I don't do it because I think there is no benefit and it looks bad to the user in most cases.
-
I agree with Jackson on this one. If it makes sense and provides value to bold a keyword phrase, I see no reason why you shouldn't do it. I often bold phrases I want to drive home in the reader's mind.
But if it is really just to highlight keywords and for "SEO" then, yeah, it will probably look spammy.
-
I agree with Chris - it's definitely old school and can look a little spammy, especially if it is overused or calls attention to a somewhat unnatural use of a keyword.
That being said, I don't think bolding a keyword will incur a penalty from Google. If emphasizing the keyword provides some kind of value to a user, than you should definitely consider using it.
-
Good point Chris... I know, old school - refreshing my skills!
Going to remove the boldening, just needed to know if it could be causing a penalty or not.
thanks,!
-
It used to be considered a very, very minor factor and though I don't believe it is algorithmically spammy today, I do think it looks spammy and old school. My feeling is that people now get the impression they've been or are being marketed to when they land on a page that has the keyword emboldened.
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 not provided now in search console
Hello, Is the not provided now available in google search console ? It seems that it is or is it a totally different thing in the search console ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Greek SEO Menu Catecory Keywords with Lowercase or Hypercase? With tones or not?
Hello to all, Αs you know the Greek language is very special, wonderful but so difficult at the same time...! The same difficulty i face when im trying to use the adwords keyword planner tool, to choose the wright words for a new menu category when i built new SEO for a new site. I encounter a major problem with keywords who have the same meaning and some people use the right spelling and others use wrong spelling! I give you an example with word "κάρτα μνήμης" who means in english "sd card". In Greek language we have tones and we can wrote the word "κάρτα μνήμης" without a tones -> "καρτα μνημης" and without wright spelling and without tones at the same time -> "καρτα μνημησ". Keyword planner give me another results for each word whatever it has the same meaning! ex. (καρτα μνημης = 0 clicks, κάρτα μνήμησ = 210 clicks and καρτα μνημησ = 2400 clicks!!!) If i put the menu keywords with Hypercase you think that i am ok? I wonder if i use the wright spelling and orthography and i put them with Lowercase if I have a problem and didn't take the full of clicks of all keywords with the same meaning! I prefer for better design Lowercase's but if i have a problem with Seo i will change it! Thanks, Kalogeropoulos Marios
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marioskal0 -
Keyword difficulty and time to rank
Hello, Is there a correlation between the keyword difficult and the time it takes to rank ? In other words let's say I try to rank for the keyword "seo" and it is going to take 2 years to rank 1 st whereas if I go for "best seo tools in 2018" and it takes just 2 weeks ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
H1 tags and keywords for subpages, is it best practice to reuse the keywords?
So let's say I have a parent page for shoes, and I have subpages for dress shoes, work shoes, play shoes, then inside each of those pages I have dress shoe cleaning, dress shoe repair, same for work and play shoes. Would it be ok to use h1 tags like this: Shoes > Dress Shoes > Dress Shoe Cleaning Dress Shoe Repair Work Shoes > Work Shoe Cleaning Work Shoe Repair Play Shoes > Play Shoe Cleaning Play Shoe Repair Would these be considered duplicate h1 tags since cleaning and repair are used for each subpage? In certain niche companies, it's rather difficult to use synonyms for keywords. Or is it ok to just keep things simple and use Shoes > Dress Shoes > Cleaning and so on? Especially since we have urls and breadcrumbs that are structured nicely using keywords, for this example both breadcrumbs and urls read like sitename.com/shoes/dress-shoes/cleaning. Any advice?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Deacyde0 -
Google Search Analytics How to Get Search Keywords for a Page?
How do I get the keywords coming into a page on the new Google Webmaster Tools Search Analytics? Used to be there in the old version. You would just view your most popular urls and when you expanded the urls you would see the terms driving the traffic. How do I see the most popular keyword queries for a given page in the new tool? Alternatively can I still use the old tool somehow?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | K-WINTER0 -
Is it alright to repeat a keyword in the title tag?
I know at first glance, the answer to this is a resounding NO, that it can be construed as keyword stuffing,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MIGandCo
but please hear me out. I am working on optimizing a client's website and although MOST of the title tags
can be optimized without repeating a keyword, occasionally I run into one where it doesn't read right if I
don't repeat the keyword. Here's an example: Current title:
Photoshop on the Cloud | Adobe Photoshop Webinars | Company Name What I am considering using as the optimized title:
Adobe Photoshop on the Cloud | Adobe Photoshop Webinars | Company Name Yes, I know both titles are longer than recommended. In both instances, only the company name gets
truncated so I am not too worried about that. So I guess what I want to know is this: Am I right in my original assumption that it is NEVER okay to
repeat keywords in a title tag or is it alright when it makes sense to do so?0 -
What is the best way to incorporate region-based keywords?
Greetings Mozzers, I am wanting to get the most "bang for my buck" in regards to region based keyword pages. If I am going after the keyword "Plumber" and the region "San Antonio", would it be best to: 1- Create a San Antonio Plumber page where we can target all critical factors for the region based keyword "San Antonio Plumber"
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MonsterWeb28
2- Link every instance of the term "San Antonio" and "San Antonio Plumber" throughout the site to the newly created "San Antonio Plumber" page. Thank you for any advice/clarification on this matter.0 -
Ideal number of Anchor text keyword variations
Let's suppose that I want to rank for the keyword "hotels". If I put this keyword in ALL of the link anchor texts then Google will very likely penalize the site. My question is: How many keyword variations should I use in anchors (provided I want to rank for just one KW i.e. "hotels")? Would one keyword variation be okay and is it fine to use main keyword in 80% anchors and the keyword variation(s) in just 20% anchor texts, such as : hotels 80% cheap hotels 20% Note: I do not want to rank for "cheap hotels", just want to use it as an anchor variation of my desired keyword "hotels". Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RightDirection0