Keyword Density: Frequently Asked Questions - Are there any tools for calculating keyword density?
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A number of good keyword density tools are available. They include:
Search Engine World’s Keyword Density Analyzer http://www.searchengineworld.com/cgi_bin/kwda.cgi,
Keyword Density Analyzer http://www.virtualpromote.com/tools/keyword_analyzer/,
and SEO Chat’s SEO Tools - Keyword Density http://www.seochat.com/seo_tools/keyword_density/
There are many more good tools available with a simple search.
Can a Web page have too many keywords?
In theory, a web page can have an almost unlimited numbers of keywords provided that the page contains enough other words to balance them. In practice, however, a page should most certainly contain five percent keywords or fewer. The reason for restricting the number of keywords is not strictly to avoid Google filters. It’s also to keep the copy easily readable for the visitors. Badly written copy is not informative or good sales or marketing material. Any minimal benefit derived from slightly higher search rankings is more than offset by a rapid loss of visitor traffic and potential customers.
What is keyword stuffing?
Keyword stuffing is the very intensive placement of keywords within a Web page’s copy. In general, the level of keywords would be so frequent as to overwhelm the rest of the copy. While the overuse of keywords is likely to trigger a Google filter, the potential loss of visitor traffic due to hard to read content is a much larger problem. A searcher finding a Web page consisting of keywords obviously jammed in everywhere is highly unlikely to remain and convert to a paying customer. The loss due to keyword stuffing is therefore twofold.
What are some common forms of keyword stuffing?
Keyword stuffing can result from jamming as many of the keywords into the page’s informational copy as possible. The copy reads like a string of keywords and little else. Another form of keyword stuffing is to pack the word or words as many times as possible into the page title tags. The search engines will often downgrade the page in the search rankings, or perhaps ignore the keywords entirely. Neither result is beneficial to the website. Keyword stuffed doorway pages or cloaked pages are not only examples of keyword overuse, but are also penalty causing items in their own right. The constant and complete usage of the same link anchor text for all inbound links can be considered a form of keyword stuffing as well.
Can a site be penalized for keyword stuffing?
A site can and will be penalized by the search engines for keyword stuffing. Google appears to be very sensitive to overuse of keywords on the page, as a filter will be triggered. Penalties ranging from a downgrade in the search results, to the loss of Google PageRank, to possibly being banned are options that the search engine giant could consider imposing on the site. As with all search engine optimization efforts, common sense and thinking of what benefits your site’s visitors is the best action for any website owner to use.
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