Google and keyword density

ranking down due to reducing the content.

[lakr]

Hi all,

My webpage used to:

- Rank #1 and #2 on Google and Yahoo for a competitive keyword.
- Rich content and keyword density.

I have just redesigned it with more pictures and less text, and the ranking for this page has been decreased: (of course, it is more beautiful and user-friendly)

Google - from #1 to #2
Yahoo - #5 to # 8

So both Google and Yahoo now see content as the most important factor to rank a page? I have read things about this, I did not believe it, I did believe in links, now I think in different way and learn a hard lesson: "content is king" - what you have known for years.

And what I want to ask you here: how long is a long article, I mean how many words (minimum) an article should be in order to get high ranking?

Thank you,

Lkr

[tedster]

A long article can have a higher keyword density or a lower keyword density - density is not directly related to the total number words, it's a percentage. On the other hand, a longer article will most likely have a higher keyword occurance, simply because it's more natural to use the word or phrase a few more times.

However, I don't think Google is directly using either of those metrics. One factor that I do think they are using involves naturally co-ocurring words and phrases. A longer article is more likely to include more of those kinds of elements. And even basic co-occurrence measures are really old information retrieval technology. What Google patented this year (in 6 patents!) is something they called phrase based indexing [webmasterworld.com]. It's related to traditional co-occurrence in some of its effects, but it is more sophisticated in various ways - especially in achieving computational economies.

Simple measures such as word count and keyword density can only be a very, VERY rough guide to today's author. So I have no easy answer for your question.

[ann]

I've seen some high ranking sites with only one of the searched on keywords...in the title.

[Quadrille]

I'd aim for about 500-1000 words per page - that's the page's unique content.

If there's lots of template or includes, you may need more.

But reduce the size of 'shared' content as far as practicable - it bores readers, and it's 'code bloat' to SEs.

It's always good to remember that content is king - if you don't, sooner or later Google will remind you ;)