Overoptimization

What constitutes over optimization?

[Webdetective]

I'm unclear about what constitutes over optimization.

If I repeat the same keyword phrase in the title tag, meta tags, 1 H1 heading on the page and 1 image alt tag, and maybe once in the <p> body text, could that be over optimization?

Fred

[trillianjedi]

I'm not so sure you can look at it in such a mathematical way.

In general I look at a page and if it looks "spammy" to me, then I've overdone it.

If it looks good, and reads well, then it's right.

I don't think you can really overdo the non-visual factors such as keyword meta-tags. My understanding is Google ignores them anyway. Image-Alt tags should be a simple description, and again shouldn't look spammy (these are "visual" elements as far as a screen reader is concerned).

TJ