Can I get penalised for targeting unusual search terms?

[marvin]

I have recently discovered several search terms which are relevant to my site using Wordtracker that have very high traffic and minimal competition. Inspection of the SERPS for these terms revealed that these terms are being targeted exclusively by MFAs.

I have set up a page on my (high quality) site which incorporates the most promising of these terms and I believe that I can easily become number 1 in SERPS.

The term is fairly unusual but I have managed to incorporate it in to my site in a natural way (for example, if the term were “high quality blue widgets free”, it would appear in my site as “……… Company X manufactures a wide range of high quality blue widgets. Free delivery is available in the UK ………..”

My question is this; Can my site suffer as a result of targeting a search term which has been heavily targeted by MFA sites (eg, will Google bots see that this term is being spammed and de-list every site which appears to be targeting it)?

This is my first post on Webmaster World after several months of lurking. I’d like to thank all of the members for making this such a high quality forum of useful advice.

[Quadrille]

No problem at all.

If a Google-user wants to search for a particular term, Google will provide that service, with no 'judgement' attached; each site known to Google which includes the search term will be served up according to their merits.

Whatever Google may think (or not!) about certain sites, that will not prevent them from providing the service, and will not reflect on other (unconnected) sites.

If your competition is largely MFA sites, then you'll probably do very well - but don't take that for granted; maintaining and developing a quality site is as important as building it!

Good Luck (and welcome!) :)

[marvin]

Thanks Quadrille!

[skweb]

Can anyone come up with a term that spammers have not targeted yet? Relax; if you have a clean website you have nothing to worry.

[potentialgeek]

In my experience, Google is very sensitive to spamminess targetting a single keyword, but for everything else, two-word phrases, three words, or more, it likes to serve up results.

Stick to good titles and H1 tags; then see what happens. The very fact that a phrase is unusual or not targetted a lot implies it wouldn't show up on Google's radar for gamers.

p/g