Too much text on home page?

[jady]

I usually just site back and participate in other discussions, but I need to start one on a topic we have been trying to get answers to..

We have several Clients - many of them we really just optimize the site for 1-2 keywords (main keywords). Keyword density on the index page is really strong for these 2 keywords and the site has a PR5. Of course all other SEO techniques (legal ones) are being utilized.

The sites rankings have dropped considerablly recently after the Client added a few paragraphs of "non-keyword rich" text to the home page. My question is - does this extra text make Google give LESS weight to the density of keywords that we are trying to target? We have the keywords on the page twice on H1 tags, title, etc. We work with over 200 Clients and I havent seen anything like this before.

The site in the #1 spot for this aggressive keyword has NO TEXT on the home page and a PR5. I find no spammy techniques being used by them and have no idea why they are number one. I even checked their anchor text of their links - NADA!

The sites in the 2,3,4,5, etc positions have some keyword usage but a lot less text. I guess more focused on the keywords themselves.

Any thoughts, suggestions, constructive criticism, etc. is welcome... :)

[watercrazed]

The extra text would decrease the density rating for the body of the page. Some claim there is a optimum page lenght of between 300 and 500 words or so. But with that said I would be surprised at a "considerable drop" due to a couple of extra paragraphs.

[Marcia]

Just out of curiosity, two questions.

Are there links to other pages in the site in the paragraphs they added?

Where on the page was their new text added relative to placement within the code - toward the top, middle of the page, or more towards the very bottom of the visible text on the page?