Keword density..

[skirril]

Hello,

The more targeted pages of my site (ie. the more specialised)
yield a kw density of 15-17% (for 2 and 3 word combos),
the general ones (broader scope) only get at 1-2% for
the 2 and 3 word combos.

Now i wodendered, what are "normal densities", ie. a what
should a well-obtimised page yield?

Skirril

[shanz]

I'm no expert but for a specialised keyword I had a density of 20% and that trounced the opposition.

However advice elswhere on the board suggests that for a more competative keyword you should balance the density more in proportio with the other significant factors. PR etc. Someone suggested about 8-10%.

Search around there are other threads on this.:o

[incywincy]

as a programming exercise i've recently written a tcl script that generates a top 10 list of websites for a given search term based on rankings in the top SEs. my next step is to analyse keyword densities and show these.

how is keyword density measured? is it based on what can be seen in the browser or is it based on all alpha-numeric words in the html?

[WebGuerrilla]

To try to get accurate numbers, you would need to analyze all components of the page that contribute to scoring. That will be different on each engine.

All in all, I think density analysis is really a waste of time and effort. There are just too many other factors that influence a page's position. If you take time to look at pages in Google, you'll find density numbers all over the map. Any averages you pull from that data end up being pretty meaningless.

8%-10% is a good range because pages with densities in that range read well. They have not yet crossed over into the area of being obviously optimized.

[Filipe]

All in all, I think density analysis is really a waste of time and effort.

Kudos, WebGuerilla!

[Brett_Tabke]

All in all, I think density analysis is really a waste of time and effort.

Say what!? I agree there are alot of factors that go into a pages rankings, but density is still paramount. It's the difference between a page 3 and page 1 listing.

[JamesR]

>say what?!

yeah BT, you still wasting your time on that? :)

>I agree there are alot of factors that go into a pages rankings, but density is still paramount. It's the difference between a page 3 and page 1 listing.

Hmmm, I don't pay attention to it at all and do OK. How do you know what is page density or another factor that is pushing your page to the top? (million dollar question, isn't it?) :)

[heini]

High density is something that can make a real difference in FAST.
Call me stupid, but I'm convinced that tweaking density relations between different key-words/phrases has helped in Google too.

[mykel]

I have a couple of sites that have practically the same design, but they just feature a differtent..umm...widget ;) They have very similar amounts of inbound links. On some the keyword density on the main page is aroung 10%, on others around 40%. The main pages seem to index very similarly for these keywords in Google, so in my case the density doesn't seem to have any effect. As for other engines, very probable.

[Ove]

I must agree with Heini on this good density for search phrases will give you a big boost.

/Ove

[Robert Charlton]

>>I'm convinced that tweaking density relations between different key-words/phrases has helped in Google too.<<

Not only density, but also the proximity of words in a target phrase. In addition to an exact match or two, I try for some combinations where the matches aren't exact, but the words are pretty close to each other. And then there's position on a page... not to mention the influence of headings. All these cloud a simple density analysis, but I still think density is important.

On-page optimization, including density, become less important in highly competitive areas where you're also battling Page Rank and link relevance... but I'm thinking that Google, for example, may have dialed up text density a little higher in their recent update.

[WebGuerrilla]

O.K.,

Just to clarify. I said "All in all, I think density analysis is really a waste of time and effort."

I didn't say that density is no longer a factor. I just don't think it's really possible to find a "sweet spot" the way it used to be. All you can do is come up with a "safe spot" which is usually an average of the extreme differences in density you will find.