Keyword stuffing

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Keyword stuffing is a search engine

optimization (SEO) technique, considered
webspam or spamdexing, in which
keywords are loaded into a web page's
meta tags, visible content, or backlink
anchor text in an attempt to gain an unfair
rank advantage in search engines.
Keyword stuffing may lead to a website
being banned or penalized on major
search engines either temporarily or
permanently.[1] The repetition of words in
meta tags may explain why many search
engines no longer use these tags.

Many major search engines have

implemented algorithms that recognize
keyword stuffing, and reduce or eliminate
any unfair search advantage that the tactic
may have been intended to gain, and
oftentimes they will also penalize, demote
or remove websites from their indexes that
implement keyword stuffing.
Changes and algorithms specifically
intended to penalize or ban sites using
keyword stuffing include the Google
Florida update (November 2003) Google
Panda (February 2011)[2] Google
Hummingbird (August 2013)[3] and Bing's
September 2014 update.[4]

History
Keyword stuffing had been used in the
past to obtain top search engine rankings
and visibility for particular phrases. This
method is outdated and adds no value to
rankings today. In particular, Google no
longer gives good rankings to pages
employing this technique.

Hiding text from the visitor is done in

many different ways. Text colored to blend
with the background, CSS "Z" positioning
to place text "behind" an image — and
therefore out of view of the visitor — and
CSS absolute positioning to have the text
positioned far from the page center are all
common techniques. By 2005, many
invisible text techniques were easily
detected by major search engines.

"Noscript" tags are another way to place

hidden content within a page. While they
are a valid optimization method for
displaying an alternative representation of
scripted content, they may be abused,
since search engines may index content
that is invisible to most visitors.

Sometimes inserted text includes words

that are frequently searched (such as
"sex"), even if those terms bear little
connection to the content of a page, in
order to attract traffic to advert-driven
pages.

In the past, keyword stuffing was

considered to be either a white hat or a
black hat tactic, depending on the context
of the technique, and the opinion of the
person judging it. While a great deal of
keyword stuffing was employed to aid in
spamdexing, which is of little benefit to the
user, keyword stuffing in certain
circumstances was not intended to skew
results in a deceptive manner. Whether the
term carries a pejorative or neutral
connotation is dependent on whether the
practice is used to pollute the results with
pages of little relevance, or to direct traffic
to a page of relevance that would have
otherwise been de-emphasized due to the
search engine's inability to interpret and
understand related ideas. This is no longer
the case. Search engines now employ
themed, related keyword techniques to
interpret the intent of the content on a
page.

With relevance to keyword stuffing, it is

quoted by the largest of search engines
that they recommend Keyword Research
and use (with respect to the quality
content you have to offer the web), to aid
their visitors in the search of your valuable
material. Google discusses keyword
stuffing as Randomly Repeated Keywords.

In online journalism
Headlines in online news sites are
increasingly packed with just the search-
friendly keywords that identify the story.
Puns and plays on words have gone by the
wayside. Overusing this strategy is also
called keyword stuffing. Traditional
reporters and editors frown on the
practice, but it is effective in optimizing
news stories for search.[5]

See also
Cloaking
Content farm
Doorway pages
Scraper site
Spamdexing
References
1. Irrelevant keywords , Google Keyword
Quality Guidelines
2. The Panda That Hates Farms: A Q&A
With Google’s Top Search Engineers ,
Wired.com, March 3, 2011
3. All About the New Google
"Hummingbird" Update ,
SearchEngineLand.com.com,
September 26, 2013
4. Bing URL Stuffing Spam Filtering ,
Bing.com Blogs, September 10, 2014
5. On Language, The Web Is At War With
Itself , Linton Weeks, for National
Public Radio, July 15, 2010.
External links
Google Guidelines
Yahoo! Guidelines
Live Search (MSN Search) Guidelines

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Last edited 2 months ago by Kuru

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