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I have noticed that keyword density is a real issue with Google. Sites with very few keywords are doing better that those with a greater keyword density. I have always found keyword density a problem. Whenever I write about a specific issue I tend on repeating the same words over and over again. I'm not trying to spam the search engines, but I sometimes get into a frame of mind and use the same words. I guess it is time to get a thesaurus.
My question is what % of keyword density does Google like? When is a page considered too dense? How is density calculated? For example if someone is talking about their inventory it is better to say blue fish, green fish, yellow fish or fish in the following colors blue, green, and yellow.
I realize that proximity becomes an issue as well.
Sometimes it is difficult to write about something without what may be seen as excessive repetition.
I would love to hear other opinions and get some specific recommendations.
Petes poodles can go and register a multitude of catchy business names,pay the $$, wait for approval from the Government, then go and register the .au domains with his proof of ownership of the business names. Fork out $178 Aud just for each domain name(2yrs) (might be cheaper) Phew!
Much easier to just make up a catchy name and get a .com for about 80+% cheaper online in the USA in about 4 minutes.
.com domains makes life so much easier.
Sites with very few keywords are doing better that those with a greater keyword density
I agree. I noticed this earlier in the month. I was changing one of my sites from a regional focus to a national focus and reduced the number of keywords associated with regional. To my surprise, I started doing better in the serps regionally. I'm not complaining, but I didn't think the original keyword density was out of hand, Now I see that Google thinks differently.
Hank
I do think I am going to try to reduce the density of my top keywords in the text on my site. It's hard though, I actually have to make the language a bit awkward to do it.
I wish I had known about the importance of key words in the domain name and URL before I got so many outside links. It's a little late to change now.
My big question is in the future if I do get a domain or even write URLs for new pages can I run the words together or must I use spacers like this-is-my-page.com or .html?
Anne
Beeg
Thanks for that info. It's been so long since I registered a .au domain I'd fallen behind in the knowledge stakes.
Re keywords density in general...
Brett says in his paper on mastering Google in 12 months (can't remember the title - do a search) that you should not get hooked up on keyword density. Write with the reader in mind - 5% or 15%, it doesn't matter a damn.
As other posters keep saying, Google is about links and off page factors.
In particular, the .tv domain for a popular search term is still available but I'm not sure if .tv are treated exactly the same way as say .com or .co.uk [all other things being equal of course regards content is king etc :-) ]
"First, consider the simplest case -- a single word query. In order to rank a document with a single word query, Google looks at that document's hit list for that word. Google considers each hit to be one of several different types (title, anchor, URL, plain text large font, plain text small font, ...), each of which has its own type-weight. The type-weights make up a vector indexed by type. Google counts the number of hits of each type in the hit list. Then every count is converted into a count-weight. Count-weights increase linearly with counts at first but quickly taper off so that more than a certain count will not help."
Can anyone offer a citation with a reference to keyword density, per se? Of course, a higher keyword count (weight) will correlate to a higher keyword density, but we need to make the distinction between products and byproducts, so we don't lose sight of cause and effect.
I choose two word phrases and three word phrases with a density of less then 13% but more than 5%
I run tests on what the search engines find as my primary one, two, three and four word phrases.
The test results show me what it picked out from analyzing my content (word-age on page) (description) (title) and (alt), including (link text)
I then am sure to keep my one word phrases found at about 10% weighting, my two word phrases at under 10%, my three word phrases at about 9%
I feel that two word phrases and three, four word phrases should be less weighted as they are more difficult to find in these pairs on pages from sites, thus.... It is easier to get the search engines to find my pages with the one word phrases with high weighting and easier to get the search engines to find my two and three, four word phrases with lower weightings as they are less competitive most of the time.
I have many other tricks I throw into my customized algo for my own testing, including being sure I have a PR of at least 4 to get this to work correctly and other secrets.
Just my opinions but they are working very well.
All best and good luck to those looking for search engine optimization services that are handled correctly.
~Hollywood
Where keyword density becomes a deciding factor is reliant on it's correlation with other deciding factors, mostly off site as mentioned by others in this thread.
To date, this discussion has cenetred on content KW density, and not even mentioned title, meta KW, and Meta Description KW density an their inter-realtions( although the later two don't normally carry weight with Google, they certainly do with other SE's, and can do with google given cetain circumstance).
I agree that there are 3/4/5 main deciding factors and that KW density is one, yet this is variable, dependant on competition.
In general, I see little , if any, weight given to KW domains nor H1 tags.
Sensible KW 'spattering' on a page is required as are title, alt and meta inclusion of any given KW if you want that page to rank well on any SE . Good inbound ( external and/or internal) KW rich anchor text is also v.important.
SERP's can be determined by any factor above and many others including PR etc. but the weight that each factor determines is hugley dependant on how competetive the KW or KW phrase is and KW density is by no means not amongst these.
There are two types of hits: fancy hits and plain hits. Fancy hits include hits occurring in a URL, title, anchor text, or meta tag. Plain hits include everything else. A plain hit consists of a capitalization bit, font size...
So there seems to be no question that Google gives weight to domains (URLs) and H1 tags.
But one thing that I'd never come across before - Capitalization! I always assumed all searches worked on lower case but this seems to suggest a sprinkling of Caps will help.
NOTHING counts as much as most people assume that it does. That is why there is so much confusion about what is important. Concentrating on any one thing is as stupid as ignoring any one thing.
It really seems to always come back to this in the end.
You read the forums here, get a few hints how you can "improve" your sites, and tweek the pages accordingly.
But when you set the site up in the first place, you ensured that all the "100" factors were maximised. If you did not, then apart from anything else, you are vulnerable to Google tweeking there algorithm and giving weight to something else that you have left out (eg meta tags).
There is no "instant" answer, just hard work ....and content too
As Webguerilla pointed out about a year ago; for anything competitive, check normal search results with "allinanchor:" search results and you have the most important factor.
I've got a site in a REALLy non-competitive category. My site's optimizeed every which way from Sunday, and there's still one or two sites that get higher returns, even though they are not optimized, have fewer links in, etc... what they do have is keyword domains.
I guess the whole "links in" whine is a different issue completely... ;-)
Can anyone else confirm, that outbound links to a related site improves that sites own ranking? - I dont want links out as I want them to book directly on my site, not go to the business's own site.
