Over Optimizing Your Site: Just Say No - Not Everyone Uses a Standard Browser
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When you or an SEO you hire engages in practices such as keyword stuffing, hidden text, and the like, you’re making two assumptions. The first one is that the search engine spiders that index your site won’t take all those extra keywords amiss; that they’ll swallow your bait and give you the SERP ranking for which you’re aiming. The other one is that your users won’t be bothered by these tactics, because they won’t see what you’re doing. Both assumptions are wrong. I think I’ve explained why the first one is wrong, so I’m going to elaborate on the second one.
While many, perhaps most, people still access the web using a standard web browser on a desktop or laptop PC, not everyone does – and more users are accessing the Internet with nonstandard means every day. For example, some web surfers are blind and use screen readers. Guess what? These screen readers pick up all the keyword stuffing and hidden text. A website that uses these tactics sounds ridiculous through a screen reader; even for the blind, “That `back’ button is so close,” says Lloyd-Martin.
That kind of accessibility is not the only reason to avoid over optimization tactics like these. Think about the people who surf the Internet from web-enabled handhelds and cell phones. In order to conserve scarce screen real estate, these devices strip out the graphics when web surfing. This leaves users staring at text – all the text, including the “hidden” text. If you make your visitors scroll through all that on their tiny screens, they’re going to go elsewhere. Add to this the fact that the number of users who surf the web using mobile devices is likely to grow in the future, and you could have a real problem on your hands.
I’d like to make one final point as you consider your website and whether you have over optimized it. Search engines and their spiders are automated. They don’t care whether you had the best of intentions with your site and over optimized unintentionally, or you deliberately went overboard in the hope of fooling them. Whatever your motives might be, remember that too much of a good thing is too much. You will see the rewards in your SERPs and in a higher number of conversions.
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