Keyword Density: How Much Is Too Much

Chris · #1 (**permalink**) 08-24-2004, 09:05 AM

Copywriting for search engines is one of the more important aspects of the SEO industry. Ensuring your content is relevant and keyword rich is an effective method to “impress” the search engines. By impress, I mean that the majority of search engines value optimized content with keyword-laden text. However, if you have too much keyword density, Google and others can consider this spam, and may penalize your site.

With this in mind, a question was asked on WebProWorld about how much of a keyword density percentage is too much? Taking a quick glance around at the various SEO experts, there is no exact answer. However, by using the advice and knowledge of these industry gurus, I will attempt to clarify the issue a little.

According to an article written by Karon Thackston that appeared on HighRankings.com called The Magical Keyword Density Formula, keyword density is only part of the total SEO package. Karon says, “Copywriting, in my opinion and the opinions of respected search engine optimizers, is 1/3 of the puzzle; but there are other pieces to the puzzle, too.” Because of this, Karon states that there is no magical keyword density formula to determine how much is too much and how much isn’t.

Which brings us back to the WebProWorld discussion. Jade456 posed this request: “I'd like to get some opinions on the best keyword density percentage. I've heard some people say to keep it under 10% and other say the higher the better. I'm thinking that it should stay under 10, for fear of being dropped for spamming. Anyone have any thoughts?”

Jade’s request was almost immediately answered by cbp, a WebProWorld moderator, who said, “I have some pages that (accidentally) have keyword density's of >50% and still manage to rank high - I have seen all the different advice all over the place. My approach is to make sure that the keyword(s) I am targeting have the highest density on the page, but kept as low as possible (yes <10% preferably) - but most importantly the use of language should be natural. Google is getting smarter.”

cbp's point illustrates what Karon was trying to say. There is no set standard with which to adhere to when it comes to creating search engine-friendly text. However, Webnauts, another WPW mod, offers some information that serves as a caution:

“I learned that the average keywords density should be between 3 - 7 to every 100 words.” The reason Webnauts doesn’t go past this mark is because he knows of other sites that have been banned because they were considered spammers. This indicates that while there is no standard, there is definitely a point where the search engines will consider too many keywords as a spam technique. However, determining what constitutes as spam is where the trick lies.

Spam can occur when your density exceeds what is the necessary amount to gain a respectable ranking. WPW moderator bhartzer explains this thought a little further, “Every keyword phrase is different. One might do well with a 3.2 percent keyword density and another whereas the average density for another keyword phrase is close to about 6 percent. And if you were to use the 6 percent keyword density on your page to try to rank for the 3.2, then you'd be way too high, on the border of spamming.”

With keyword density, there doesn’t appear to be any rules that are set in stone. Most advice surrounding the topic centers on keeping your web text as natural as possible by not stuffing keywords into the text. Karon finishes this thought by saying:

“I focus on natural language. If the copy sounds forced after including keyphrases, I scrap it and start over. Read your copy out loud. If it sounds stupid or redundant to you, it will sound stupid and redundant to your site visitor. Don't compromise the flow of natural language for the sake of search engines.”

Peter (IMC) · #2 (**permalink**) 08-24-2004, 11:44 AM

There are 2 problems with keyword density. The first is probably the most important; What is keyword density??? It amazes me how many different understandings there are of keyword density. When one person talks about 1% in a page, another person may call the density in that same page 18%. There is a lot of confusion about what keyword density is. I wrote an article about keyword density that explains some of these confusions.

The second problem is that there is no perfect keyword density. I even have my doubts if it is really used by any search engine. It´s much more important to have the keywords in the right places and emphasize them properly.

Density is so relative that it really doesn't matter.

wlodi · #3 (**permalink**) 08-24-2004, 12:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

There are 2 problems with keyword density. The first is probably the most important; What is keyword density???

Yes, Peter's right.

What if a robot finds a text like:

"Take a look at our discounted hotel deals, apartment rentals and vacation packages. Choose from budget chalet accommodation rented on self catering basis to luxury hotels coming with full board and abundance of additional services. We provide you with resort descriptions as well as with our help in arranging all details of your trip to Europe."

How should search engine act then? If the site sells holidays and such text is on the index page, the site shall be banned or do bad in the SERPS.

Of course, there are various keywords in this text and not one, but are webmasters optimizing for single keywords and phrases?

Every search counts, doesn't it?

cheers,

wlodi

spidermonkey · #4 (**permalink**) 08-24-2004, 12:18 PM

This subject brings to mind a simple test I performed on the leading pages in the (now infamous) "Nigritude Ultramarine" competition - at the mid-stage. The two leading sites had a keyword-density, on their index pages, of 14 and 10 percent. the webmasters involved probably started at the usually reccomended 5-7 percent and kept pushing until no more advantage could be gained.

IMO this reinforces the idea that SEO is an iterative process with very few reliable fixed rules. The time, work and effort goes-into continually re-visiting your pages and re-working them until no further benefit can be gained.

Is a keyword density of 7% OK for your page? - possibly...

Is a keyword density of 10% OK for your page? - possibly...

SUCK IT AND SEE! is the only advice I can sensibly offer on that one.

Kind regards

Mike

emarketinvestor · #5 (**permalink**) 08-24-2004, 12:42 PM

This is a question and link to the answer at Google Answers. I thought the reference to and penalization for keyword density was interesting.

Why did monitorbloodpressure.com and tanitascale.com drop off of the google search results?

Answer at: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=280911

This is an excerpt of the violations found on the two sites:

"The sites which have been hardest hit by the Florida update are those sites that have most closely pushed the limits of the SEO "formula" for Google ranking. Typically these sites have some or most of the following characteristics:

Domain Name: Keyword1Keyword2Keyword3.tld

Does not use www as a Domain identifier

Page Titles: Keyword1 Keyword2 keyword3

Duplicate <H1> with all keywords

Index Keyword Density approaching/exceeding 15%

The keyword density on these sites was 19.05% & 15.46%

(Almost exclusively) Keyword Text in Back Links

Home links point to a different domain

Your two websites, monitorbloodpressure.com and tanitascales.com match
the profile of sites that have lost results ranking due to
internal/external optimization density."

Having said that, could someone look at my site at earnonline.info and tell me how you think my keyword density rates on the pages.

Thanks

schnittchen · #6 (**permalink**) 08-24-2004, 12:44 PM

Best keyword density is 40%. Or better 60%. See http://www.google.com/search?q=testbericht for further details ("testbericht" is the german word for "review").

Peter (IMC) · #7 (**permalink**) 08-24-2004, 01:52 PM

Quote:

"The sites which have been hardest hit by the Florida update are those sites that have most closely pushed the limits of the SEO "formula" for Google ranking.

That was one of the very early conclusions. In my opinion, the wrong conclusion.

If you believe that your ranks in Google depend just on what you on-the-page you can get to the above conclusion. But in reality I believe that Google just moved towards a topic sensitive PageRank algorithm.

In any way,.. spending lots of time on keyword density is a waste of time. There is 1 thing you do want to pay attention to. To see if your chozen keyword(s) have the highest density. Everything is relative, so the absolute values don't matter, but the relation between the various densities of the keywords in a page does matter.

Peter (IMC) · #8 (**permalink**) 08-24-2004, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by schnittchen

Best keyword density is 40%. Or better 60%. See http://www.google.com/search?q=testbericht for further details ("testbericht" is the german word for "review").

Please,..... don't come to those types of conclusions. That page ranks number one because:

1) testbericht is hardly optimized for (though it is a word that is used a lot)
2) That page has a PR of 5
3) The reason that that page seems to have a high density is because it is used in all links as the domain name contains that word.

in other words, Google is right to put that site in position 1 because it is probably the only site that is about testbericht (review). In pretty much all other sites testbericht (review) is used as part of a bigger thing.

electricwind · #9 (**permalink**) 08-24-2004, 03:16 PM

I've noticed in my surveys of competing sites for my particular niche (energy medicine, subtle energy), half the top-ranked sites with Google don't even use keywords. One site (ranked #2) only had one keyword in the body text, which was merely a caption to a Flash presentation, which was ALL that was on the page. This leads me to believe that less is more for keywords, but it probably depends on the popularity level of particular keywords. When I reduced the number of my keywords in the META tag (3-4), I got a much better SER.

stoked-seo · #10 (**permalink**) 08-24-2004, 08:34 PM

I've been experimenting with SEO Studio and it gives me good results in regards to density levels. This tools makes easy to analyse the competition for the same keywords. I know some seo companies that have their keyword density levels throught the roof and never got penalized...go figure!

Deep13 · #11 (**permalink**) 08-25-2004, 01:28 AM

actually i don't belive much in keyword density and all, it all depends upon the keyword phrase you want to optimize for

for example if you search for Send Gifts to India, you will find keyword density different compared to sites for keyword Rakhi Gifts

for Send Gifts to India you will see the keyword is not repeated much in the pages i.e. you see it more in the title and meta description...

but for Rakhi Gifts you will find the keyword stuffed all over in the page i.e. title, meta keywords and description..infact the site which is on the stop is just spamming all around with the keywords,meta keywords and description both are same..but still google has not blocked them..

so what i think is..there is nothing like any fixed keyword density or anything, you just have to play around with google for sometime and make changes according to that...

Regards
Deep

Marc Bowker · #12 (**permalink**) 08-30-2004, 10:17 AM

My site is an e-commerce site and I'm using some of my keywords in my product description titles. For example, two of my keyword phrases are manufacturers of the products that I sell, and I list the products by those manufacturers as "product name" by "manufacturer name." It doesn't appear that this has helped my rankings much, but could it be hurting me?

Jade456 · #13 (**permalink**) 09-13-2004, 03:52 PM

It was strange to see myself quoted in the newsletter. Thanks for everyone's input. Seems that there are a lot of opinions on the subject. I did increase my keyword density a little last month and I did go up to the top spot. Whether it had a large or small impact is anyone's guess. Again thanks for all the advice.

hawkwind dave · #14 (**permalink**) 10-12-2004, 12:01 PM

I don't understand this keyword density thing, one of my sites, www.justmackintosh.com is a lovely site, its main key phrase is 'charles rennie mackintosh', which isn't competative at all (only 101,000 results!).
it has about 65 backlinks, the keyword density doesn't exceed 8% (which is about right I think), but still the site ranks nowhere for it's main key phrase 'charles rennie mackintosh'.

now my gut feeling is that I've over optimised, but the keyword density is around 8% for each word in the main keyphrase. I'm reluctant to add more 'charles rennie mackintosh' occurances to the site as it wouldn't read well, so I'm kind of stuck with what to do next to improve rankings.

pne · #15 (**permalink**) 10-14-2004, 04:43 AM

Dave,

I think you're right, i.e. it's beyond comprehension. BTW your Mackintosh site IS beautiful. You must have an artistic temperament or summat!

pne

hawkwind dave · #16 (**permalink**) 10-18-2004, 05:53 AM

Hey thanks PNE,
Our designer did the JM site, I'm just responsible for it's (lack of) rankings. (another thorn in my side)

Another thing got me going about this keyword density thing, I've read that if your targeted keyword appears in the url, page names, page titles, alt tags, image folders, inbound link text, etc, everywhere. Then this could be considered spam of some sort, and may be a reason for not ranking well on the targeted keyword.
However, if for example, I sold guitars, then all my images would be of guitars, and have 'guitar' in the alt tag. the page titles & names would all be 'something guitar'. All (or many) inbound text links would be 'guitar shop', the url would be 'www.hawk-guitars-wind.ay.up', the site would be plastered with the term 'guitar' in a natural way, but due to the repetition of the term, could be considered spammy, and may get a ranking penalty for the term guitar. If this is the case (which I have a feeling it is) then what are we supposed to do? Do we start using the term 'over sized ukalele' to avoid over doing 'guitar', or do we have to add loads of text that doesn't mention 'guitar' to bring the density of 'guitar' down.
The whole keyword density thing defies logic. if you don't mention your keyword enough, how does your page get ranked for that keyword, if you mention it too much (or as many times as the term needs to appear), you could get penalised for that term.
"je nais comprendes pas"

ps. Anybody want to buy a sign for a shop called 'labyrinth'? (hand made, wooden, 13ft long 7inch high, red stain)

virtualtraveller · #17 (**permalink**) 10-19-2004, 01:12 AM

It's important to distinguish here between 'keywords' and 'keyphrases'. Although the former is popularly used to cover the entire topic there is a significant difference;

firstly, most SEO pages are targeted at a keyphrase, most people now know that a single word search in Google is going to produce a rather vague result.

Type in 'Hotels' and you'll get hundreds of hotel sites, type in 'hotels in Las Vegas' and you'll get more of what you're looking for.

Obviously an SEO would target the keyphrase 'hotels in Las Vegas' and if the page had plenty of organic text about Las Vegas and it's hotels the two keywords here would appear dozens of times, even without trying, in fact you'd have to make extra effort to dampen down the density.

What is important is the exact keyphrase match for the targeted keyphrase (which of course should be your H1) e.g. 'hotels in Las Vegas' or ' hotel rooms in Las Vegas' or 'book hotel room Las Vegas' , IMO if the google algo sees too many of these exact matches it will raise the red flag, if it counts a lot of the keywords from the search phrase in the text, in different orders and matches it will more likely see this page as a strong contender.

If on the other hand you have a page about 'Las Vegas' (two keywords in theory) on a geniune tourist site about Vegas, the keyphrase 'Las Vegas' would likely appear dozens of times, I doubt whether the google algo would block this as 'spamming', because all the best sites on the web (the ones it would really like to return as top of the SERPS) would disappear.

Difficult to know really, rule of thumb = always keep it as organic as possible.

webinv · #18 (**permalink**) 11-09-2004, 02:08 PM

Check your keyword density here for free...

http://ranks.nl/tools/spider.html

I love this tool.

Mel · #19 (**permalink**) 11-16-2004, 05:51 PM

I question if Google actually uses keyword density at all when determining rankings for search terms. I say this because firstly Google does not have the full page text available for use at ranking time (which is done using only the data from the word barrels) and secondly because from inception Google have eliminated the need to calculate densities by the simple expedient of giving each occurance of a word succesively less weight.

scallihan · #20 (**permalink**) 12-04-2004, 12:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hawkwind dave

I don't understand this keyword density thing, one of my sites, www.justmackintosh.com is a lovely site, its main key phrase is 'charles rennie mackintosh', which isn't competative at all (only 101,000 results!).
it has about 65 backlinks, the keyword density doesn't exceed 8% (which is about right I think), but still the site ranks nowhere for it's main key phrase 'charles rennie mackintosh'.

now my gut feeling is that I've over optimised, but the keyword density is around 8% for each word in the main keyphrase. I'm reluctant to add more 'charles rennie mackintosh' occurances to the site as it wouldn't read well, so I'm kind of stuck with what to do next to improve rankings.

It is not the keyword densities that matter, but the keyphrase you are optimizing for. Your problem is that your keyphrase is repeated in your page way too often (at least 15 times!!!). Reduce how many times it is repeated and increase the amount of text on the page.

Also think that repeating "Mackintosh" twice in the title is a bit spammy.