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Is keyword tags totally irrelvant (In: General Search Engine Optimization)
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buddhu
Joined: Mar 23, 2004
# Posts: 56
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Posted: 2004-Aug-19 10:25
Hi all,
You've probably all heard the following questions a million times. I've searched the forums but not found current, clear info on these, so please excuse me.
Keyword density is one of the greyer areas to me. Various KW checking tools return different percentages for keyword density on the same page. Any consensus on which tools are likely to give density figures close to those that the search engines would see for a page? Ive seen list of tools, and tried dozens, but without any hint about which give the most SE-relevant results I'm still shooting in the dark.
Also, do you think keyword density should be calculated as a percentage of *all* words, including stop-words, or should stop-words be taken out before the calculation. Some tools give you the option to do either, so no hint there... Different tools even give me different counts for the total number of words on our pages too, so I'm having a really hard time knowing who looks at what when calculating total word count or KW density!
Another question: do occurrences in the title tag count towards on-page KW density? I've always assumed keyword and description metas aren't counted, but the title...?
For that matter, what about keywords in alt text... is that counted as part of the KW density? What exactly is counted and what isn't?
I read thejenn's comment in another thread: "I tend to take a look at what the densities are on the sites that currently rank well...". That makes perfect sense, but in Google, for example, how can you know how much the ranking is due to KW density and how much to PR, backlinks etc etc.
I know it's is also widely debated how much weight the SEs give to keyword density these days, but I might as well try to get it right... just in case!
As you can probably tell, I'm a little bewildered, and I'm probably asking for an SEO panacea without meaning to.
Thanks very much in advance for any tips.
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bhartzer
Staff
Joined: Jun 08, 2000
# Posts: 7042
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Posted: 2004-Aug-19 22:06
Google indexes everything on the page, everything it can see. So, you will want to check your keyword density with a tool that shows you the density based on everything on the page. Some break it down to sections of the page, showing you the density of the title, header area, body text, etc.
Whatever you do, though, use one tool to compare all the pages that show up in the top search results. Don't get too caught up in all the different tools out there, though. I actually use this tool here to check keyword density.
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buddhu
Joined: Mar 23, 2004
# Posts: 56
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Posted: 2004-Aug-20 11:28
So occurrences in keyword and description metas contribute to KW density for Google (and Yahoo?) ? I hadn't realised that.
Thanks for the info. 
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thejenn
Joined: Aug 08, 2001
# Posts: 9196
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Posted: 2004-Aug-20 20:53
Well...wait...you're getting back into grey area there. It's debatable how much weight Google gives to keywords in your description or keyword meta tag...
...but...Yahoo appears to be reading and using the meta description and meta keyword tag, so there's obviously reason to include them.
I would put more time and effort into things like the title tag, heading (<hx> tags, anchor text and body copy than some other areas like alt attribute, meta keyword, etc... Don't ignore the other areas, just put your effort into the areas that humans see...
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buddhu
Joined: Mar 23, 2004
# Posts: 56
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Posted: 2004-Aug-23 22:07
Ah... Gotta love grey areas, innit?
This is quite frustrating. It's so difficult to get a clear picture, despite everyone's helpful info. The reason I ask about keywords in the metas isn't because I'm hung up on KW density, or because I want to stuff KWs into any part of our pages. Let me try to explain...
A couple of our competitors rank higher than us for a couple of competitive (in our industry) terms. One of them has just sneaked ahead of us on Google with two results, knoocking us down from #2 to #4. I'm working on making sure we update content frequently and on building good quality backlinks with keyword-rich anchor text. I've implemented a sitemap etc etc etc. All the basic common sense stuff.
Ok, The two competitors I need to outperform both have lower KWD than us. I don't care about the various recommendations one hears about magic percentages for KW density (5%, 7%, whatever), but I do see the sense in the school of thought that says make your KWD just a hair's breadth higher than top ranking sites. What I find hard to figure out is what should I compare... Our KWD is quite a bit higher, so where do I trim excess keywords from?
And I *so* get the feeling that I'm making this harder than it needs to be.
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bhartzer
Staff
Joined: Jun 08, 2000
# Posts: 7042
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Posted: 2004-Aug-23 22:56
I know it's frustrating--I guess that's the way the search engines want it. All I can tell you that it's a grey area like TheJenn says.
The last time I talked to a Google engineer in person they told me that "Google indexes everything on the page."
As for the exact percentage, I would say that you want to be a little bit higher, not a whole lot higher. If you need to trim excess keywords, then do it in the visible text on the page and starting on the bottom. Keyword Prominence can be a factor, too.
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thejenn
Joined: Aug 08, 2001
# Posts: 9196
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Posted: 2004-Aug-24 17:32
Remember...sites do not rank on keyword density alone.
Take the time to check the backlinks that your competitor has. Perhaps they scored a really great backlink from a super authority site and that was enough to bump them up ahead of you. Linking plays a strong role in Google's algo.
Prominence, as bhartzer pointed out, is also important to look at. Is your keyword phrase used in your title tag AND your <h1> tag? Is it used in the internal anchor text that links to that page? Consider not just the overall density, but the actual placement...
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buddhu
Joined: Mar 23, 2004
# Posts: 56
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Posted: 2004-Aug-25 16:42
Good advice guys, and I think we're already following most of it...
Thanks for the tips.
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Peace_and_Powder
Joined: Jul 28, 1999
# Posts: 99
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Posted: 2004-Oct-07 23:01
From thejenn:
Is it used in the internal anchor text that links to that page? Consider not just the overall density, but the actual placement...
When you refer to the "internal anchor text", are you referring to the name of the anchor tags? I've never heard that as being super important, but I guess they are links on the page that take you to important parts of a page. Kind of like an internal backlink.
Anyone have more info on anchor text?
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thejenn
Joined: Aug 08, 2001
# Posts: 9196
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Posted: 2004-Oct-08 14:45
"When you refer to the "internal anchor text", are you referring to the name of the anchor tags?"
No, I'm referring to the text used as the actual link.
Think of how many times you've seen web copy like this:
"For more information on our blue widgets, click here."
In the above sentence, "click here" is the anchor text. What you SHOULD be doing instead is making use of that anchor text to work your keyword in to it. A better bit of web copy would be:
"Learn more about our blue widgets."
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joptimizer
Joined: Oct 18, 2004
# Posts: 16
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Posted: 2004-Oct-19 20:42
I know that meta keywords are not as high in importance as keyword density or keywords in your URL and title, but does it matter if there are commas or no commas in the meta keywords?
Do the SE consider you spamming if there are no comma seperators between words?
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thejenn
Joined: Aug 08, 2001
# Posts: 9196
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Posted: 2004-Oct-19 21:12
commas or no commas is a personal choice, you can do it either way.
Personally, I do not use commas. Without commas, the search engines will break up the words into any number of phrases, as they see fit.
Thus, "buy purple fizzlesticks discount" can be read as the following phrases:
"buy purple fizzlesticks"
"purple fizzlesticks"
"fizzlesticks"
"purple fizzlesticks discount"
"fizzlesticks discount"
etc...etc...
If you use commas, the search engines will use those commas to break the list up into phrases according to your commas. Thus, you need to include more phrases and make your tag longer.
Again, just personal choice and not something worth going to batty over.
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joptimizer
Joined: Oct 18, 2004
# Posts: 16
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Posted: 2004-Oct-20 16:42
Since you are saying that the search engines would break up the phrases it's self, does the search engine then count the term muliple times based upon the amount of phrases it can derive?
"buy purple fizzlesticks"
"purple fizzlesticks"
"fizzlesticks"
"purple fizzlesticks discount"
"fizzlesticks discount"
Would the engine count fizzlesticks 5 times even though you put "buy purple fizzlesticks discount" only once, because of the number of combos the SE could generate?
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