Robert_Charlton - 9:00 am on Jan 6, 2003 (gmt 0)

>>why not create specific pages targeting those additional phrases?<<

Actually, I do that too, at least with my most important 2 and 3 word phrases, and I didn't mean to suggest that you shouldn't. When I want to make sure that the optimizing for a phrase is rock solid (at least the on-page optimizing aspects), I build dedicated pages.

But it's limiting to think that all you can target on a page with a 3 word title is that 3 word phrase. There are a great many peripheral phrases, as I call them, that bring in traffic but probably aren't high on the radar, that perhaps don't need a dedicated page.

I generally target longer, more specific, phrases deeper down in the site... but some short phrases can be caught higher up.

Also, on some types of sites, it's hard to just keep adding pages. If you're building pages only to target phrases, surfing your site can turn into a very unsatisfactory user experience. I feel that it's not possible to build an interesting site composed of pages targeting lots of variations of phrases without substantial interesting content to motivate them.

There's also the question of flow of PageRank... you need a lot of it if you're going to start building pages very many levels down. The top pages are often able to grab a few phrases, so why not use them that way, as long as you're not diluting other phrases?

>>Make it complicated and it is wrong.<<

Targeting multiple phrases on a page does in fact make my head start to swim almost more than anything else I do in SEO, and I'm in emotional agreement if nothing else.... ;)

I completely agree with you that the title is the core of the page. That's where I start, anyway.