META Tag Keywords: Repeating vs. Spaming vs. Phrases

What is one to do!?!

[peterinwa]

I keep reading conflicting advice on creating the best possible list of keywords. I read that if a search finds an exact phrase in your keywords, it will move you up the list. But including phrases repeats individual words.

I also read that that is considered spaming. Sometimes if a word is repeated over three times.

My "calories burned calculator" is most commonly found searching for "calories." Next is "calories burned." Next is "calories burned calculator." So right there that's three "calories."

But it's also found with "calories calculator" and all sorts of other variations. So I don't know where to stop with my keywords.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Peter

P.S.

With my current set of keywords -- with many repeated words -- I'm at the top of the list a Google, but not even in the list at AltaVista. Could they have "black-listed" me for spaming?

[Travoli]

Hi Peter. Since I have not had the chance yet; Welcome to Webmasterworld!

The rule about not repeating keywords 3 times applied to META tags. META tags do not carry much weight anymore (if any), but it is a good rule of thumb to not repeat a word more than three times there.

As far as content on your visible pages, repeating a keyword many times would be fine as long as that particular word does not take up more than 10% of all of the content.

If you are at the top of Google, I would say "don't mess with it!"

Altavista's results are much less accurate, difficult to optimize for, and referrals #'s are smaller.

[Macguru]

I am with Travoli. May I suggest not to write a keyword in the meta if it does not appear elswere on visible parts of the page. Try to limit total lenght to 10 words ( 50 to 75 caracters )putting most important first.

This tag alone will not do much for you. Search engines put more value on visible content of pages. Here is a very good thread to start with to craft good pages.

one-size-fits-all SEO [webmasterworld.com]

Altavista take longer to list pages, and updates are erratic. But dont worry about it, since does not have a very big market share anymore.

I have a # 2 position on AltaVista and a # 5 on Google for a given keyword. I get twice the visits in a single day from Google than AltaVista will bring in a month.

[peterinwa]

Thanks to both of you.

I have an interesting situation.

I have very little text on my homepage for a spider to find. I have gone to great lengths to keep it simple. According to what you say about the spiders looking at content instead of META tags... I guess I'm hurting myself. Oh well... I'm doing fine.

Here's another question...

I am using frames. So of course there is NO content at my actual URL. Do the spiders look at the frames making up the homepage?

Thanks again,

Peter

(edited by: engine at 4:39 pm (utc) on April 8, 2002)

[papabaer]

Hello Peter, weclome aboard!

Traditional frames are not very spider-friendly. What you and I may see displayed as a complete page, spiders interpret a dis-jointed, seperate entities. Frames can be difficult.

I visited your site after I "re-enabled" my javascript settings on my Opera browser.

Many Web Developers are concerned with NN4 compatibility issues (NN4 currently holds approx. 4% user-base) but often overlook another, perhaps more important statistic: currnetly, approximately 12% of surfers do so with javascript "turned-off" or "disabled" on their browsers.

Your javascript alert box will prevent these visitors from accessing your site.

This issue is decidedly different than the NN4 compatibilty situation. The former a based on a decision to code (or not!) for a browser with dwindling marketshare, incomplete support of HTML 4.01 and very limited support of CSS, while the latter involves a situtation where users simply wish to surf in a secure and un-assailable manner (at least as far as pop-ups and mouse-trails are concerned).

Your calculator is a good example of productive javascript; it has real value for those inclined to use it. However, placing the code directly on your homepage (along with the javascript alert) will limit your potential traffic.

There are many differnt ways to approach an optimal solution. Search engines love pages that offer content over code (percentage wise), pages that use traditional page constructs such as headers, paragraphs and text links.

You use a javascript alert box to introduce visitors to the benefits of your calculator: you would benefit by placing that descriptive text directly in the page itself.

What you might consider, would be to place the calculator in an iframe (include a text link to the calc page for NN4 visitors between the iframe tags) on a "main page" that is constructed to highlight the use and benefits of your calculator.

A carefully constructed title, <meta tags>, a header and several good descriptive paragraphs would go a long way towards "useability" and "spiderability." Be sure to include a paragraph explaining that javascript must be enabled on your visitors browsers in order to use your calculator.

Doing this would allow you "room" to work keyword phrases into your various page elements, complementing those included in your HEAD content (title/meta).

The benefit of using an iframe is that you can actually remove all javascripting from your main page as all essential scripting for your calculator will be moved to the page that loads into the iframe. Some would be tempted to use a "pop-up" window, I would not choose this option.

In any case, this is one possible solution. I think the benefits would be substantial enough to consider it.

Once again, welcome to WebmasterWorld! :)

[peterinwa]

Thanks for all that info. I'm saving it for consideration when I have more time.

Wow, that's scary... 12% of surfers not using JS. I think I'll make one change right away.

If they don't have JS enabled, I'll display a simple page explaining the problem. I'll put a counter on it to see how many visitors end up there.

Thanks a lot,

Peter