Is keyword density still relevant?

Posted by seotech on May 17, 2009 under expert seo techniques | Be the First to Comment

Keyword density still plays a part in effective search engine optimisation – after all, if a web page contains no textual references to the keyword being searched for, there is little or no reason for that page to appear in search results.

However, these days search engines place much less reliance on keyword density as a factor in their rankings.

Google for instance uses an algorithm comprised of 200+ factors before spitting out the search results to any query. Of course, reverse engineering that algorithm is what seo is all about, and what we are experts at!

Keyword density – the history

Let’s examine keyword density a little more closely – Early search engines suffered from abuse and ranking manipulation by webmasters using keyword-stuffing to manipulate the results. Search engines aim to provide relevant search results to web users, and they have had to adapt to ensure their results showed the most relevant search results, not unrelated pages stuffed with keywords by unscrupulous webmasters.

The success of a search engine is determined by its ability to produce the most relevant results to any given search.
Too many frustrating search results that are irrelevant to what the web user is actually searching for, and the web user will no longer use that search engine.

Search engines have responded to this problem by developing more complex algorithms, which include many “off-page” factors, such as inbound links andweb site structure, thus making it more difficult to employ “black-hat” seo techniques to boost a page’s ranking.

Examining keyword density

Keyword density is the percentage of times a keyword or phrase occurs within a web page. Optimum keyword density today had become much lower, due to the off-page factors such nas inblound links becoming more important. A rough guidline for an average web page would be aroiund 3%, but this is also complicated by factors such as placement within the page itself, and the way the text is actaully displayed – eg heading tags and the like.

Getting this part of your page wrong can result in your site being penalised an even excluded by search engines, so it’s important to get your seo right!