Keyword Density Clarification, Please
-
Does keyword density only account for the content-based text on the page or everything that can be crawled on the page?
To illustrate, I'll use this forum page and the keyword Moz. Here's my incredibly short blog post:
"Moz forum is very helpful, but I still can't figure out Moz analytics."
Now, in terms of keyword density, is "Moz" only being counted twice for the times I mentioned it in my post (what I'm calling content-based text) or is "Moz" being counted 40-50 times for all the places it appears on this page.
Thanks,
Ruben
-
I'm not looking for a tool to tell me yes or no, and I have the scores I want...I've been pretty clear about that. Why is it you assume wanting to know information, means something nefarious? I inherited a site I didn't build, and I'm trying to fix it. I can't do that without knowing how things are measured. If you don't want to help, don't help. You don't need to accuse me or take things personally, because I'm a competitor.
-
To simply answer your question, perform a Google Search for "Google's Amit Singhal keyword density". Amit's research paper may prove useful to you on your quest.
Because your are in my client's competitive geo area, I do look at your site from time to time. To guide your question, take a look at your boat accident page:
http://www.kempruge.com/personal-injury/boating-accidents/
This really does read as keyword stuffing. You have way too many variations of "boat accident" on a page with very little content. Which may partly explain why your page is buried on page 3 for "Tampa Boat Accident Attorney". Your page is NOT written for the reader, it's obviously written for the search engine. BIG MISTAKE.
You are looking for a tool to tell you yes or no, and the best tool for this is the Moz on-grade checker. If you aren't getting the score you want there.... then I'd question your content. You probably won't get much assistance in this forum if you are looking for advice on how to effectively keyword stuff under the radar. The SEO professionals here probably won't engage to help you.
-
I need to clarify, I do not care if keyword density is a good thing or a bad thing. All I want to know is how it is calculated. I'm not looking for advice, just the formula for how it determined. It's a curiosity I'd like answered. Does it take into consideration every single word on the page (including footers, sidebars, etc) or just what's "in the middle" so to speak?
-
When you use the OnPage Grader, scroll down under the scores. It will give you green checks and red x's and will indicate what is critical or optional. You want as many as the critical items completed as possible. Really, you want as many green checks as possible, but in some cases it's not always possible (like the URL). If you are spamming on a page, it will tell you that too.
-
I did use the OnPage Grader, and it says I'm fine. But, it doesn't tell me how it's calculated.
-
Use the Moz OnPage Grader if you are that concerned about keyword stuffing... because chances are.. if you are concerned about it... you probably are!!! The Grader will tell you.
-
The word on keyword density was a factor back in the day. Many years ago, the ratio was 3.7% to 4.2% of keyword usage compared to the remainder of copy. They state this no longer applicable, but this I think this addresses your question more specifically.
-
-
Maybe I should clarify. I'm not looking at keyword density as a way to boost my rankings. I'm trying to make sure I understand how it is determined, so I don't get any keyword stuffing penalties.
-
Totally agree. Keyword density is really the last thing you should focus SEO efforts on (other than meta keywords :P).
From my understanding, the only important part of the page lies in the body frame. Sidebars, headers and footers that are constant throughout the site don't really factor.
-Ricky
-
Keyword density is a myth. Though if you want a page to show better for the term 'something', at least as far as on-page is concerned, 'something' should show in:
- First in the title tag
- Within the first 50 to 100 words
- In heading(s)
- In the meta description (for CTR)
- Exact match and variants throughout (but only naturally)
- Close with 'something'
While The Googles will sometimes rewrite your titles & meta and include text from a banner or sidebar, they claim to value the part of the page below the banner and next to the sidebar the most. So I wouldn't worry too much about where 'something' is mentioned, unless it's really overdone.
Attorney City - Into INFINITY (or beyond what one may view as tasteful/helpful) - That would be bad.
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
-
Please Help! Crawl & Site Errors - Will This Impact My SEO?
Hello Moz, I need urgent help. I remove a tonne of product pages and put everything into one product page to deal with duplicate content. I thought this was a good thing to do until I got an email from Google saying: "Googlebot identified a significant increase in the number of URLs on ****.com that return a 404 (not found) error. " I checked it out and found the problem: 4 Soft 404's
Technical SEO | | crocman
41 Not Found's What do I need to do to fix this? Is it a problem or should I just ignore? I removed all the pages on WordPress but I need to do it somehow manually through Google? I have worked so hard on my SERP's that this will destroy me if I'm penalised. Please can someone advise?0 -
I have made my new website live. But while checking in Google it is not showing in search result ( site: www.oomfr.com ). Can anybody please advice.
Hi Team, I have made my new website live. But while checking in Google it is not showing in search result ( site: www.oomfr.com ). Can anybody please advice.
Technical SEO | | nlogix0 -
Why HTML entities gets crawled as content keywords in Google search console?
My Google search console shows HTML parameters such as div, class, img, src, gif, align as content keywords, but why google crawls HTML parameters as keywords? because of this, I would be losing traffic for my on-page content keywords. Please let me know how to solve this. Thanks, Jenifer
Technical SEO | | Jenifer300 -
Meta keywords shown in Google SERPS as site description
I'm seeing Google display meta-keywords in the SERP description for some sites (at least a half dozen that I've checked). I BELIEVE IT IS AN AJAX ISSUE BECAUSE: The sites all use AJAX to display content. So the meta-keywords are in the header, and the javascript that displays the content. Non-AJAX parts of the site display properly in Google SERPS The meta-keywords don't visibly appear anywhere on the page. When I turn off images and Javascript in Chrome I don't see any hidden keyword text. I BELIEVE IT IS A GOOGLE-SPECIFIC ISSUE BECAUSE: Each site displays properly in Bing and Yahoo SERPS - the meta-description is the description. However, (as expected) I see the same strange meta-keyword activity in Aol search In Screaming Frog's SERP preview I see the meta-description as the description. Google has been ignoring met-keywords for years. Any idea why it's appearing in the SERPS for these AJAX powered sites? I found one other person who saw that Google may be reading and displaying their content in AJAX even though that content is meant to appear on a different "page". No one on that Google Forum seemed to understand the person's problem. The only reason I get it is because now I'm seeing it with my own eyes. I know the Moz community can do better, so i'm posting about it here.
Technical SEO | | AlexCobb0 -
One Keyword Penalty
Hi There, Quick question for everyone. Is it possible to get penalized a keyword level not page level. I have a site that only seems to be penalized on one keyword which is currently at page 22, whilst the rest are on page 1 or page 2. I came to the site late so I have no idea when the site lost its ranking for this keyword after a site redesign but the onpage is almost the same. Kind Regards Neil
Technical SEO | | nezona0 -
Anyone having issues using Keyword Analysis and Rank tracking lately?
Seems it works once, maybe, then replies with a message that it can't complete the process when trying another keyword. _Cindy Barnard
Technical SEO | | CeCeBar0 -
Strange Top URLs for Keywords in Google Webmaster Tools
When we click on one of our keywords under the keywords section of Google Webmaster Tools it shows our top URLs for that keyword. The problem is that it is giving us some very strange URLs that we have searched high and low to try to find but we don't know where they came from. Here is a screenshot: http://bit.ly/pl6mB3 Do you know where this type of URL string could have originated and how to fix it?
Technical SEO | | Hakkasan0 -
We have a decent keyword rich URL domain that's not being used - what to do with it?
We're an ecommerce site and we have a second, older domain with a better keyword match URL than our main domain (I know, you may be wondering why we didn't use it, but that's beside the point now). It currently ranks fairly poorly as there's very few links pointing to it. However, the exact match URL means it has some value, if we were to build a few links to it. What would you do with it: 301 product/category pages to current site's equivalent page Link product/category pages to current site's equivalent page Not bother using it at all Something else
Technical SEO | | seanmccauley0