Keyword Density...What's the real deal?

My pages show a 6 to 9 % keyword density...others have 20% and top 1!

[bobosse]

Hi all,

Well, is the keyword density on a page that important anymore?
I worked really hard to get an average of 5 to 9% keyword density on all my pages, and my competition show 15 to 20% and gets the first spots on the SERPs....

We use the same meta tags or real close (title, descriptions, keywords...), H1, H2 and H3 tags when they don't...

I thought that 5 to 9% was ideal?

So, what's the deal?

Thanks guys!

B.

[elklabone]

How many backlinks does your competitor have in comparison to you?

[jecasc]

In my experience it depends. If you are targeting single keywords (widget) PR seems to be more important. For combination of keywords (blue widget) density seems more important than PR. I have several pages outranking other pages with higher PR on keyword combinations because of higher keyword density.

[ulstrup]

I think jecasc is right, allso for keyword phrases, proximity counts.

[benc007]

What tools do you use for checking keyword density and proximity?

[ralent]

Benc007

Not sure if this is the best out there, but here is one:

[searchengineworld.com...]

[killroy]

I've tried writing content using the keywords more often, it jsut looksspammy. I don't believe thinking about kw density while writign content is productive.

SN