Meta tag keywords with the same words in them.
-
I'm updating some older pages and was wondering about potential penalties from having keywords that start with the same phrase. It's a geographic area so there is the "full name" and the abbreviated name. I'd like to have keywords for both.
For example:
virginia beach, va beach, virginia beach attraction, virginia beach things to do, va beach attraction, va beach things to do, virginia beach dolphins tour, va beach dolphins tour
Is that spammy? I understand they don't have the same weight as they used to but I'd like to optimize for them anyway since I'm redoing some things.
Thanks in advance.
-
Thanks everyone. I really appreciate the time and effort each of you spent helping a newbie. I will stop using them completely.
-
Forgive me, I'm a little confused by your post title. To be clear, are you referring to <meta name="keywords" ...>which would contain a list of all of the keyword referenced within the page?</meta name="keywords" ...>
- If you are, you should know that Google drove a stake through the heart of that abomination years ago. Yahoo and Bing weren't paying much attention (if any) to these as of a few years ago, so this practice can be safely abandoned.
Meta Title and Meta Description are of value to users and a correctly titled page will give you some SEO benefit, so use these in accordance with these guidelines:
https://mza.seotoolninja.com/learn/seo/title-tag
https://mza.seotoolninja.com/learn/seo/meta-description
If you are simply referring to the keywords within the body of your page, I recommend treating your copy as though it were conversation with a prospective customer; if you keep endlessly repeating the same thing in slightly different ways they're going to ignore you at first and then, if you persist, actively avoid you. So what you need to say without trying to say the same thing a thousand different ways; it's a huge turn off for visitors and Google will not reward you for it. That's not to say you can't repeat the phrase a couple of times throughout the copy, with a few slight variations on a theme, but don't labour the point. Read your copy out loud - if you start to annoy yourself (or others) you know you've overdone it. Less is more.
And give Google credit; it's smart. There really is no need to endlessly feed it every variant going. Google have invested huge sums of money in getting smarter and semantic search (https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-101-semantic-search-care/119760/) is a big part of that. I'd drop VA altogether (apart from the odd mention in a page or two - if it justified it because it added clarity and stick with 'Virginia Beach', building the main thrust/theme the site (or section of the site) around that, with separate pages for each specific activity or article focus 'dolphin tour' etc. Google will work it out without the need for you to shout at them.
Keep the end user at the forefront of your thinking when you're building your site, answer their questions, scratch their itches, and you'll be rewarded.
Use your keywords appropriately not repetitively, regardless of the context.
Good luck!
Note to self: I must write quicker replies, two other people answered this while I was writing this!
-
Hello Stephen,
A few years ago Matt Cutts said that google does not take into acount the meta keywords tag.
Here the youtube video: Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web rankingI have no information about being penalized for using that tag with keywords like that.
Honestly, very few sites uses them. And some SEOs consider that there is no risk other than your competitor knowing what your keywords are.Best Luck.
GR -
It's not that they don't have the same weight - they have no weight, Stephen. Don't waste your time on them.
(In fact, you'll just be making it even easier for your competition to grab lists of the keywords you're targeting.)
Paul
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
-
1500 words per post * 10 posts vs 15000 words in one article, which is best for SEO?
If you don't have any problems with Text/HTML ratio. Which one do you prefer for better results? With reasons of possible, thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | Eslam-yosef0 -
Which Meta Tags would you recommend having on the pages?
Hello, There are so many different meta tags which you can implement to the header of your website and I'm wanting to get people's opinions on which you feel are worth putting in and which are completely pointless? For example: Author Copyright Language Content-Type Content-Language Distribution Abstract Keywords Description Classification Canonical Expires Revisit-after Rating I look forward to hearing your comments and suggestions. Kind Regards, Shaun Swales Twitter: Https://www.twitter.com/CryptCommerce
On-Page Optimization | | ShaunSwales0 -
I am optimizing title tags and was wondering if it makes a difference if I use "commas" in between keywords that are synonyms or should I use "and" instead?
For example: "pants, trousers at pants.com" or "pants and trousers at pants.com".
On-Page Optimization | | EcomLkwd0 -
Title Tag To Long
In the initial review of my site, I have 38 warnings of title tags to long. It also says these warnings are often penalized by search engines. In Google webmaster tools, It says I have no problems with long title tags. So am I getting penalized and do I need to shorten them? I would already have shortened them but in the past, everytime I have changed my title tag I have been penalized by the search engines. I usually get my rankings back but it can take up to a month and a half to get back to where I was.
On-Page Optimization | | tkobrien0 -
Does keyword at the very front of meta description have impact?
I know that it is important to have your primary keyword target as the first word or two words of your title tag. But what about your meta description tag? does it matter where they keyword is in the description tag? I see a lot of other sites stuffing their keywords right at the front of the description tag and it looks somewhat unnatural. What's your take? do you put the primary keyword as the first word or two words of your description tag?
On-Page Optimization | | adriandg0 -
Canalogical Tag
Hello, I wanted to have a clean url for example : site.com/producta and our web developer installed this module which does this great. However there are now two products one with unclean url for example sit.com/productaxmlayoiadkja and the clean one - on both pages page it says: <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.site.com/producta">Is this correct? Reason being is I'm aiming for the long tail and the site is not getting any visitor although we have unqiue 250 products+ and getting less then 20 visitors a day after almost a year! I would appreciate any help because I'm getting in real trouble because the site is performing so badly!
On-Page Optimization | | reallyitsme0 -
3 keywords optomize for home page. Should I create page with thoses keywords or leave it like this?
My online store home page, Furnace Filters Canada has 3 keywords with good ranking in google.ca keywords: ''furnace filters canada'' rank #1 position in google.ca keywords: ''furnace filters'' and ''furnace filter'' are on 5 or 6th position of page 1 in google.ca Those keywords are bringing most of the traffic to our site. To achieve this ranking, I had to use the On-Page Keyword Optimization, tool from seoMoz Questions: It is possible for me to create a page with the URL: https://www.furnacefilterscanada.com/Furnace-Filters or https://www.furnacefilterscanada.com/Furnace-Filter Can this improve my ranking with keywords like, ''furnace filters'' and ''furnace filter''? Is this a waist of time? If I decide to create a new page for optimization with, do I have to create one for singular and another one for plural? Creating a new page also mean removing, '' Furnace Filter'' in the home page title, until the new pages are index, I'm afraid to loss that 5th position in Google. Should I leave the home page title like it is now, '' Furnace Filter - Furnace Filters Canada - Online Shopping Store NOTE: we only do business in Canada, that is why Google.ca is more important to us Thank you, Jean Nichols
On-Page Optimization | | BigBlaze2050 -
Keyword use in Title tag?
To improve SEO on a particular keyword, should you use that same keyword in the title tag of multiple pages within your site? Will that help or would it actually hurt by causing pages within your site to complete against each other for that keyword? Does it make a difference if that keyword is truly used on all those different pages?
On-Page Optimization | | KHCreative0