Keyword Density :: It’s a Joke

The search industry is filled with more than it’s share of information sources, some good, in my opinion, most not quite up to par. Of these information sources, a few I consider very good. One such source, Web Pro News.

One of the things I hear repeatedly on those less than cutting edge SEO blogs and even many websites of providers of SEO is talk of keyword density. This is my opinion of keyword density:

This went out with 1999. Actually, many top SEO professionals have stated publicly that keyword density never really existed, except as a part of a service that could be sold to the unsuspecting website owner. There are still many so called SEOs who reference this relic of an idea but it really tells more about their lack of SEO knowledge more than anything else.

Do not concern yourself with keyword density.

This is posted here.

It would seem that one of my favorite sources of real SEO and search marketing information has the same opinion as I do.

Keyword Density – This one might surprise you a little bit.  Keyword density is kind of a joke.  It is in fact NOT desirable to work 500 instances of your target keyphrase into the text of your target page.  I know this seems counter intuitive to some, but I for one was very glad to see this claim supported by some data in the Ranking Factors session.

If your page is about Blue Beach Widgets, you have Blue Beach Widgets in your title and you have pages linking to your blue beach widgets page with the terms ‘blue beach widgets’ in the anchor text THAT is good.

You do NOT have to whore out the content of your page to have ‘blue beach widgets’ repeated 50 times in the description.  I know you have seen these pages…  they look like:
“Bob’s Blue Beach Widget Emporium has the finest selection of blue beach widgets on the web.  Our blue beach widgets are so much better than our competitor’s blue beach widgets, that all of our blue beach widget customers all think our blue beach widgets are the best blue beach widgets ever. So if you need a blue beach widget, or have a friend that needs a blue beach widget, tell them to visit the blue beach widget emporium to find the best blue beach widgets in the blue beach widget business”

This has to stop people. It makes your site read like a bad skit on the Muppet Show. This kind of thing makes me cringe, and it’s ruining the Internet.  Well maybe it isn’t ruining the Internet like MTV ruined America, but it does make for some horrible web pages.  I still hear SEOs talking keyword density to site owners.  If you are a site owner and some SEO comes talking to you about increasing your keyword density, do everybody a big favor and throw something at them.  Please.

The entire article summarizing ranking factors for 2009 can be read here.

Other than my site, Web Pro News is an excellent source of REAL search engine optimization information that can be put into use on your website today.

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