Keyword Density - or without stop words?

[deepavs]

The searchengineworld Keyword Density Analyzer gives me the option to filter out common stop words.

Should I consider the final keyword density of the html page to be what is given with or wihtout stop words?

Should I count the density with/without the page title & meta tags?

Also - what might be the max keyword density what Google likes? (PlanetOcean says 0-12% would be ok)

[martinibuster]

Hi deepavs,

Consider the density without the stop words. Stop words are the words that the SE filter out as noise.

I would consider the density with the titles and description.

In general I don't fret about the density anymore, though. There are other factors in there of greater importance.

A great experiment I did in the past was to run a number of queries in the search engines and analyze the results- especially the top scorers with a low keyword density.

[mil2k]

In general I don't fret about the density anymore, though. There are other factors in there of greater importance.

Exactly ;) You got to put in a bit of more efforts for those other factors but that is really worth it :)

[SuzziJ]

As someone who has done work for many many many clients across the engines for a long time now I can honestly say that keyword density never has, and never will (unless things seriously change) figure into any of the work I do for my clients. You can analyze the top results 'till the end of time but you will never see a real trend. The one and only thing to focus on is the use of English on the page, what do I mean by that? Well you probably hear many people calling it copy, and they are right. Get the words on the page, in the tags - structured the right way and away you go. Dont ever ever worry about density...trust me...ill make you a superstar!

[oilman]

doesn't really matter how you do it IMO - just make sure you use a uniform approach - if you include stop words then always analyze including stop words or vice versa - that said I'd do it with out stop words.