Medical Marijuana Keywords
-
Has anyone seen any evidence of Google penalizing for Medical Marijuana related keywords in states where that is legal?
Thanks in advance.
-
Hi,
Just did a quick check on a few marijuana related keywords in Semrush. Don't know if they are really penalising the keywords, top results always seem to be a mix of (governmental) information, and sites where pro/contra are discussed:
- wikipedia
- http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/
- http://www.drugpolicy.org/medical-marijuana - http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/state-medical-marijuana-laws.aspx
- http://norml.org/legal/medical-marijuana-2
- http://www.azdhs.gov/medicalmarijuana/
I guess that unless the queries are very specific (like: buy medical marijuana online) it will be very difficult to get high positions in the SERP's.
I would assume that the risk of having this content on your site is pretty low, especially if your content is balanced (pro/contra). We manage the biggest health site in the Netherlands (where recreational use of marijuana is allowed since quite some time). While marijuana is not really our top keyword, we do have like 120 articles/news items published and it does not seem to do any harm (as our organic traffic continues to grow).
Hope this helps,
Dirk
- wikipedia
-
Thanks for responding Ryan.
Google seems pretty vague on this and this is just a part of one of our client's business so we don't want to optimize in a way that could get his whole site penalized or discredited.
-
There's not much on this in sourced material other than some mentions in places like: http://www.google.com/goodtoknow/familysafety/advice/#behaviors, "Set age-appropriate filters on your computers and your child’s mobile devices: Filters and other internet safety tools block categories of inappropriate websites a child can view, such as sites containing pornography, violence, gambling, and illegal drug information." Google's SafeSearch is primarily focused on pornography. And the filters mentioned in the link above are in reference to installs on local machines.
Is there some filter going on though? Try typing, 'california medical marijuana' into the search bar and notice where suggested search ends... Obviously at this moment in time there's a legal gray area for this topic as a few states have made medical and recreational use legal, while federally it is still illegal in the US. And right now, search tends to mirror that grayness as well.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
One of our top visited page (login page) missing primary keyword, does this makes ranking drop of our homepage for same keyword?
Hi all, So, I have removed the "primary keyword" from login page, which is most visited page on our website to avoid keywords in non related pages. I noticed our homepage ranking dropped for same "primary keyword". Visitors of this login page directly land without searching with "primary keyword". Then how removing it from such page drops our ranking? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
When Is It Okay To Use Bold, Underline & Italic Text? Should I Stay Away From My Keywords?
Hey guys I have a few questions. I am pretty sure that I was penalized by Panda a few years back because I went very heavy on bold, italic and underlining my keywords. Since then I removed the bold, italic and underlines and never have used them again. I was just reading an article on the Moz Blog and I saw some bold words. My questions are, When Is It Okay To Use Bold, Underline & Italic Text? Should I Stay Away From My Keywords? Any help would be great! Thank you.
Algorithm Updates | | Videogamefan1 -
Google webmaster tool content keywords Top URLs
GWT->Optimization->Content Keywords section... If we click on the keyword it will further shows the variants and Top URLs containing those variants. My problem is none of the important pages like product details pages, homepage or category pages are present in that Top URLs list. All the news, guides section url's are listed in the Top URLs section for most important keyword that is also present in my domain name. How to make google realize the important pages for the important keyword?
Algorithm Updates | | BipSum0 -
Not necessary to have keywords in the page? Do you agree?
I am being told by my SEO consultants that: "According to present Google algorithm it is not necessary to have keywords in the page. What is more required is the content is relevant to the page and whether visitors will stay on that page or not. If visitors stay for a longer time in your site it add bonus to the ranking of the site. So I think it is not necessary to add key phrases in the content." Do you agree?
Algorithm Updates | | PegCorwin0 -
Why won't my keyword search results appear on google's top 50?
They are only appearing on Bing and Yahoo, can anyone share some insight?Help? Here is the URL: www.aaexs.com
Algorithm Updates | | RealmindTechnology0 -
Reason for massive dropp in targeted keywords?
Our site at www.total-displays.com has ranked well for a variety of keywords over a long period of time. After the change on Jan 18th we have seen a dramatic drop in organic rank across a variety of keywords. Our site has very good unique content and has a large number of pages (it's a Magento site). Advice we have taken is that the site will bounce back after a few weeks but this does not seem to be happening. Any advice please? Thanks Nick
Algorithm Updates | | Total_Displays0 -
Hyphenated Words as Keywords what is spam?
Do you know of any evidence that explains how Google or any SE would handle pages with words that are commonly hyphenate? Our site for example has a large O-ring section. A couple years ago when we did our SEO we used Google's keyword tool and found that these words all have different Cost Per Click, Global / Local searches. O-Rings
Algorithm Updates | | donford
O-Ring
oring
o-ring So we assumed they were each unique keywords and designed our pages to alternate usage of the terms as they are fairly interchangeable. However we have not achieved the position we would have expected from all that work, now while I'm doing another SEO pass with the tools here.. I want to make sure we don't spam them, but still cover all our bases. Thanks for any tips, advice or links.0 -
If a page one result for a keyword is mostly directories, do I have a chance to rank for this keyword?
I feel like although directories carry a lot of weight and links, I'd think that my client would be able to gain a top position, since none of the others are competitor pages, nor are the directories engaging.
Algorithm Updates | | randallseo0