Why does Google allow stuffing?

#1 sites using this thechinque are more common today

[silverbytes]

I saw two different sites using this stuffing technique and ranking #1
Note how they use the folder name to put keywords with commas and spaces, since they use it in img folders they have the page full of keywords

<SCRIPT language=JavaScript
src="widgets, cars, widget cars, widget inns, files/widgets.js" type=text/JavaScript></SCRIPT>

In both cases are #1 sites competing with other non spamming sites. Those stuffing sites has PR2 while other re#*$!s have PR5 and are below them.

Many times we hear: don't make pages for se, make pages for users. So I can't understand how to compete with that stuffing techique. Obviously no one with common sense names a foler "Mykey1, other key, more keys, bla bla"

However is the only difference I can appreciate between those and other sites below them.
Does Google care about it?
Is that useful?
Ethical?

So what do you do in that situation?

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 3:29 pm (utc) on July 15, 2005]
[edit reason] please no specific kws or outing of sites [/edit]

[Brett_Tabke]

There is no indication that those kw's helped in the rankings what-so-ever. Google is still primarily link/pagerank/hub/authorities based. There are probably 2-3 HUNDRED criteria that get factored in before kw's in a meta tag or text js construct get factored in.

[Lorel]

Also not all search engines read JavaScript. Google does but whether it uses it for keyword rank is another question.

[MrRoy]

It is still a big QUESTION MARK on the different factors based on which Google ranks pages. Yes i agree with silverbytes that sites that stuff keywords in their sites rank well in Google. It is hard for me even to believe that. Also i saw that sites with very low PR ranking very well comparing with sites having very high PR.
Keyword stuffing though considered to be a spammy techniques, but still some sites are doing that and getting away with it.
Hard to believe that even Google cant trace those sites.

[Reid]

those guys are the ones who will be crying the blues during a google update.
Just keep building a solid site. It may grow slower than theirs but it will survive a lot longer and retain it's rank through thick and thin.

[Reid]

Another way to look at it, I'm just busting at the seams over this, I just got an e-mail from a group who has gotten Govt approval and has chosen my site after researching my sector. They are building a monument which will in all probability recive international attention. They asked me if I could 'donate' a few pages to be the 'official' host site - like a web monument - They will provide the text/graphics for me to make a few pages and merge them into my site (totally related).
They said I was the best site on the topic. It pays in the end.

[bbunlock]

I am sorry of this is out of line or anything, I have visited this site from time to time for quite a while now but never took part in the talks going on.

However this subject has hit me in the face for a reason.

I use mod rewrite to create search engine friendly URL's for my dynamic pages, now my urls have keywords in them but they are relevant for the page in question, also the main reason was to make them easier for the search engines to read.

so my links now look like this

this/is/a/link.php

instead of

istings.php?category=this&subcat=is&another=a&again=link

now either way my link would have the words in it but now at least it looks readable (to people and search engines)

is what I have done considered a cheap trick? I hope not as I spent a lot of time designing the site to be more se freindly

thank you

[DamonHD]

Hi bbunlock,

No, I sincerely hope that no one considers that a cheap trick!

I have completely re-written my data-driven site a couple of times now over the years to try to achieve a readable and natural (to people and SEs) layout such as the one you outline.

In fact, I'd consider that I'd done the job as well as it could be done if I could show that people could guess/type the URL to go straight to what they were looking for rather than needing my site's search engine.

Rgds

Damon

[jbinbpt]

Hi Bbunlock...

It's not a cheap trick at all. You're not hiding anything or adding thing. I think you are spot on designing for users. It may seem silly, but keep it simple. If it's easier for users, it'll be easier for spiders.

Welcome to WebmasterWorld.

[silverbytes]

Hi, I consider not a cheap trick. I was talking to a different tecnhique I consdier cheap (and probably everybody does) naming folders using a long list of keywords. That doesn't help users at all. Same website hides H1 repeated keywords hiding the font color against same background color. That's cheap. The question is why Google allow that and position their sites #1. In my opinion stuffing works nowadays. They are doing it and they are ranking ok, which is sad.

[hutcheson]

reid, that sounds like a real honor. Do you mind PMing me with more detail?

[surfgatinho]

If keyword stuffing doesn't help sites to some extent then why does the spam report include hidden KWs (which I can only assume would be there to stuff KWs)?

[janethuggard]

"Also not all search engines read JavaScript. Google does but whether it uses it for keyword rank is another question"

Yahoo, MSN, and Google read javascript and they all rank for it. See the Adsense snippet from their javascript below.

google_ad_client = "pub-";
google_ad_width = 728;
google_ad_height = 90;
google_ad_format = "728x90_as";
google_ad_type = "text_image";
google_ad_channel ="";

Search for:

google_ad_height = 90;

and you will see the search result in all 3 engines.

See the #3 result in Yahoo for it, and it is plain to see that they indexed the java script, and they ranked for it. That page has 3 Adsense boxes on it, and it ranks highly for the searched term.

It is more difficult to see this result in Google, but if you are diligent, you see examples on page many pages deeper, for example page 91 of the search result at Google, that also is not a Google blog, with Google words on it, and has no other 'google' words on the page. One page is in Chinese, and it ranks for the phrase, with no other english google words on the page. That code is contributing to the 'popularity' of the keyword, 'google' across the web.

Java script, in the top of the body or header, if is outweighs the page, will hinder seo. Examples of this are numerous Adsense boxes, lengthy java script codes for navigation, and lengthy feeds. They actually give more popularity points to the site that produces the javascript, as seen in Yahoo result #3. But, because it dilutes the keywords on the page, AND pushes the content much lower in the page code, it hinders search engine ranking.

In the case of #3 at Yahoo he has 3 sets of javascript, indexing, and then ranking. I doubt he has anything else ranking because the seo is anemic.

This accounts for that often talked about, and little understood 'Adsense Penalty'. Where webmasters say, once they added Adsense, their traffic level went way down. It is not a penalty, just bad seo when placed in the top of the page code. It needs to be at the bottom of the page code, as stated at length in another of my recent posts.

[larryhatch]

Back to the original question: It looks like G ignores KW stuffing for the most part.
In my niche / main keyword, the top listed site is a textbook example of kw stuffing.

The Meta tags (probably ignored) are stuffed like a turkey, bursting at the seams.
At bottom of page, barely visible in tiny dark grey print against a black background,
is another barrage of kw-s.

Its impossible to miss if anyone really looks. Its been like that for years now.
I can only conclude that either the engines don't look, or they don't much care. -Larry

[fischermx]

I think this is exactly the situation were a human review triggered, may be by another human reporting the site, will get them out.
You could report them as SE spam, specially, if they have also hidden text.

[claus]

>> Why does Google allow stuffing?

Because it doesn't make any difference? Aka. "let them waste their time if they've got nothing better to do" ...

[silverbytes]

I disagree. It makes difference. Those well ranked sites stuffing are ranking ok, are #1, and reporting spam is a great waste of time really. Google and Yahoo don't take action (or don't take any noticeable action about).

If they are wasting their time they are getting great results.

[claus]

>> Those well ranked sites stuffing are ranking ok, are #1

Perhaps I was a bit unclear. It's just that I don't feel confident that the reason for the ranking is the stuffing itself. It could be that there were other reasons for the ranking and the stuffing just didn't make any difference.

As usual, I might be wrong...

[Frederic1]

Lorel wrote :
Also not all search engines read JavaScript. Google does but whether it uses it for keyword rank is another question.

Janethuggard answered :
Yahoo, MSN, and Google read javascript and they all rank for it. See the Adsense snippet from their javascript below.
___________________________

Thanks for the details Janethuggard. Those search engines read Javascript code, but do you think they understand it?

I mean, if you do :
<a href="javascript:window.open('http://www.site.com')">site</a>

... or if you do :
<SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript"><!--
function w(p) { window.open(p); };
--></SCRIPT>
<A HREF="javascript:w('http://www.site.com')">site</A>

Do you think SE will follow the links? I don't think so ...
If SE just interprete Javascript code as Text, then it's not very useful as JavaScript is a computer language, not human :\

[claus]

Frederic1, look closely at those two code snippets you wrote. Can you identify the part of them that is an URL?

That's what the SE's do. They parse the raw text for patterns that look like URL's. No need to execute the script.

[Frederic1]

... so they don't execute JavaScript code like browsers do? They just identify the pattern?

Which means if you do sth more complicated like generating dynamic links ... for example :

<SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript"><!--
function w(p) { window.open(p+'/dir/file.txt'); };
--></SCRIPT>
<A HREF="javascript:w('http://www.site.com')">site</A>

they won't understand?

_______________

EDIT : I think you are wrong Claus, it seems google doesn't even follow javascript:window.open() links. G indexes the url as simple text but doesn't follow it. I have an example that proves it.

[claus]

A "parsed URL" might not be followed immediately on first sight. Perhaps it's just added to a "pool" of URL's that should be spidered sometime, dunno. As for the link in raw text (non-linked link) I would not feel certain that it would never be spidered, if it had a standard URL format. Same with links in PDF-documents, etc.

Here are some threads [google.com] on the issue. Note: The older ones say "no" and the newer ones say "yes", as this has not always been the case.

As for interpretation and execution of JavaScript; to the best of my knowledge the ordinary spiders don't do this.

BUT, (a very big but) the regular spiders are not the only ones out there. Both Yahoo! and Google have Mozilla/5.0 compatible spiders [webmasterworld.com] as well. Google even has one that acts as a cell phone [webmasterworld.com]

[jd01]

Search for:

google_ad_height = 90;

and you will see the search result in all 3 engines.

See the #3 result in Yahoo for it, and it is plain to see that they indexed the java script, and they ranked for it. That page has 3 Adsense boxes on it, and it ranks highly for the searched term.

Uh, which of these sites does not display the code visibly on the page? Yes, some of them have ads on them also, *but* each and every one has the code on the page as plain text also.

(If you decide to follow up on this, please remember to check the SE's cache, it is not always the same as the page displayed to the user when clicking a link...)

If a SE do parse and rank for js, why don't js counters go nutty during a crawl?

Why when you search for a js counter do you get the site(s) that deliver the counter, and not the sites that have the counter on the pages with the best SEO?

Why do SE's not follow js links?

Could js be factored into page structure? Sure, but at this time I do not see any argument that shows it is factored in ranking (EG OT keywords), except for factors which we already have a good idea that exist. (EG code to viewable text percentage.)

As for the ranking for the js code... the only ones I see have it displayed on the page - remember the SE cache.

Justin

[silverbytes]

Regardless jscript most frequent use is on image folder names, so the extense use of that using keywords provides lsi richness. Instead calling that, I think is stuffing. And yes perhaps there are other factors but at least stuffing is not hurting them at all what is again unfair.

[stuartc1]

I have never seen any proof of this kind of 'hidden in code' KW stuffing actually making any differnce.

A good way to test is run some quoted searches for these, see if you find anything! I've done some and found zero.

Also look at the cached page - then the 'text only' cached page (this is more like how google sees the page).

if anyone can provide one example I'd be very interested!

[silverbytes]

I can pm you the site and belive me, it is...