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Tag: Keyword Stuffing

  • Bing Reveals URL Keyword Stuffing Spam Filtering

    Bing revealed in a blog post this week that it rolled out an update to its algorithm a few months ago that targets URL keyword stuffing. They had alluded to such an update in another recent post.

    Igor Rondel, Principal Development Manager for Bing Index Quality writes:

    Like any other black hat technique, the goal of URL KWS, at a high level, is to manipulate search engines to give the page a higher rank than it truly deserves. The underlying idea unique to URL KWS relies on two assumptions about ranking algorithms: a) keyword matching is used and b) matching against the URL is especially valuable. While this is somewhat simplistic considering search engines employ thousands of signals to determine page ranking, these signals do indeed play a role (albeit significantly less than even a few years ago.) Having identified these perceived ‘vulnerabilities’, the spammer attempts to take advantage by creating keyword rich domains names. And since spammers’ strategy includes maximizing impressions, they tend to go after high value/ frequency/ monetizable keywords (e.g. viagra, loan, payday, outlet, free, etc…)

    Approaches commonly used by spammers, as Rondel lists, include: multiple hosts with keyword-rich hostnames; host/domain names with repeating keywords; URL cluster across same domain, but varied host names comprised of keyword permutations; and URL squatting.

    Rondel notes that not all URLs containing multiple keywords are spam, and that the majority actually aren’t. For this reason, Bing is using its new detection technique in combination with other signals.

    “Addressing this type of spam is important because a) it is a widely used technique (i.e. significant SERP presence) and b) URLs appear to be good matches to the query, enticing users to click on them,” he says.

    Bing isn’t giving out all the details about its detection algorithms to prevent abuse, but does note that it takes into account things like: site size; number of hosts; number of words in host/domain names/path; host/domain/path keyword co-occurrence; percentage of the site cluster comprised of top freqeuncy host/domain name keywords; host/domain names containing certain lexicons/pattern combinations; and site/page content quality and popularity signals.

    Via Search Engine Journal

    Image via Bing

  • Here’s A New Google Video About Hidden Text And Keyword Stuffing

    Here’s A New Google Video About Hidden Text And Keyword Stuffing

    Okay, one more. Google cranked out seven new Webmaster Help videos feature Matt Cutts (and in some cases, other Googlers) talking about various types of webspam.

    So far, we’ve looked at three videos about unnatural links, one about thin content, one about user-generated spam and one about pure spam. You can find them all here.

    Finally, on to hidden text and/or keyword stuffing. This, like much of the content found in the other videos is pretty basic stuff and pretty common SEO knowledge, but that doesn’t mean it’s not valuable information to some.

  • Bi02sw41: Did Google Just Make Keywords Matter Less?

    Google is often tight-lipped about its ranking signals. It makes sense, as they don’t want you to be able to game the results and get your content to rank when it shouldn’t. That’s why it is still somewhat surprising that Google decided to start putting out these monthly lists of algorithm changes, such as the one for April they released late on Friday.

    While Google does provide us with all these changes it makes (not ALL of the changes it makes, surely – it makes over 500 a year), Google also tends to send mixed signals, telling users not to focus on the SEO trends. Trends must start when signals are discovered, so it seems odd for Google to release these lists, but the company has indicated it is an effort to be more transparent, without giving away the secret sauce in its entirety.

    But if you look at a signal like this one, they’re clearly not giving much away, even though they’re telling you changes have been made with regards to this particular signal:

    Improvements to how search terms are scored in ranking. [launch codename “Bi02sw41”] One of the most fundamental signals used in search is whether and how your search terms appear on the pages you’re searching. This change improves the way those terms are scored.

    So, from this, we know that Google has changed how it scores key phrases. They don’t say whether they have a greater or smaller impact on how content ranks, though I’d be inclined to speculate that it’s smaller.

    Google is always talking about how it is getting better at understanding content, so it seems unlikely that the algorithm would have to rely on search terms more for ranking. As Google says, this is one of the most fundamental signals used in search. It’s always been an obvious signal. It seems like it would be a step backwards if search terms appearing on a page had a greater impact. That would go against that whole SEO mattering less message Google has been sending lately (particularly with the Penguin update). It doesn’t get anymore SEO than keywords.

    In the last paragraph of Google’s announcement of the Penguin update, Matt Cutts wrote, “We want people doing white hat search engine optimization (or even no search engine optimization at all) to be free to focus on creating amazing, compelling web sites.” Emphasis added.

    For that matter, keyword stuffing, a classic black hat SEO technique was one of the focal points of the Penguin update. This would effectively render keywords less significant in that regard. On that note, there’s another change on the new list related to keyword stuffing:

    Keyword stuffing classifier improvement. [project codename “Spam”] We have classifiers designed to detect when a website is keyword stuffing. This change made the keyword stuffing classifier better.

    There’s another entry on Google’s new list of changes, which would also seem to support the theory of a lessened weight on keywords:

    Improvements to local navigational searches. [launch codename “onebar-l”] For searches that include location terms, e.g. [dunston mint seattle] or [Vaso Azzurro Restaurant 94043], we are more likely to rank the local navigational homepages in the top position, even in cases where the navigational page does not mention the location. Emphasis added.

    Google is saying outright that it’s going to return results that don’t have the exact search terms the user used. Plus, the Bi02sw41 entry appears directly after that on the list.

    There’s another entry, which could be related. It’s certainly noteworthy either way:

    Better query interpretation. This launch helps us better interpret the likely intention of your search query as suggested by your last few searches.

    This is the type of thing that could very well cause Google to rely less on exact key phrases.

    I wouldn’t advise that you stop using keywords in your content, and I’ve yet to see any real evidence that Google isn’t relying on my exact queries to return results. Keywords obviously still matter a great deal – just maybe not quite to the extent that they used to.

    Even Google itself, in a recent list of SEO DOs and DON’Ts said: “Include relevant words in your copy: Try to put yourself in the shoes of searchers. What would they query to find you? Your name/business name, location, products, etc., are important. It’s also helpful to use the same terms in your site that your users might type (e.g., you might be a trained “flower designer” but most searchers might type [florist]), and to answer the questions they might have (e.g., store hours, product specs, reviews). It helps to know your customers.”

    So, again, I’m not in any way saying keywords don’t matter. They do. Honestly, I’m not really sure what you’re supposed to do with the information in this article, but if Google is giving any less weight to keywords, it’s worth knowing about.

  • Google Penguin Update Recovery: Getting Better At Keywords

    Last week, Google unleashed its Penguin update upon webmasters. The update, as you may know, was designed to decrease the rankings of sites engaging in black hat SEO tactics and webspam. One of the classic black hat tactics is keywords stuffing, so if you’ve been doing this and getting away with it in the past, there’s a good chance the update took you down a notch.

    Specifically, Google’s Matt Cutts said the update “will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines. Avoiding keyword stuffing has long been one of these guidelines. The guideline says, “Don’t load pages with irrelevant keywords.”

    Google has a page about this in its help center, where it elaborates a little more. Here’s what Google says, verbatim, about keyword stuffing there:

    “Keyword stuffing” refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google’s search results. Filling pages with keywords results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site’s ranking. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context.

    To fix this problem, review your site for misused keywords. Typically, these will be lists or paragraphs of keywords, often randomly repeated. Check carefully, because keywords can often be in the form of hidden text, or they can be hidden in title tags or alt attributes.

    Unlike some of the other black hat tactics advised against in the guidelines, such as cloaking, Google specifically named keyword stuffing in its announcement of the Penguin update. Cutts even provided the following image in the announcement, highlighting this particular tactic:

    Penguin Announcement: Keyword Stuffing

    Cutts has spoken out about the practice plenty of times in the past. Here’s a humorous example of when he called out one site in particular about five years ago.

    More recently – last month, in fact – Cutts talked about a related violation in a Google+ update. He discussed phone number spam, which he essentially equates to keyword stuffing.

    ““I wanted to clarify a quick point: when people search for a phone number and land on a page like the one below, it’s not really useful and a bad user experience. Also, we do consider it to be keyword stuffing to put so many phone numbers on a page,” he wrote. “There are a few websites that provide value-add for some phone numbers, e.g. sites that let people discuss a specific phone number that keeps calling them over and over. But if a site stuffs a large number of numbers on its pages without substantial value-add, that can violate our guidelines, not to mention annoy users.”

    Here’s the image he was referring to:

    Phone Number Spam

    Getting Better At Keywords

    Cutts has advised that you not spend any time worrying about the keywords meta tag (though Google does use the meta description tag):

    In March, Google released a video about 5 common SEO mistakes and 6 good ideas:

    One of the “good ideas” was:

    Include relevant words in your copy: Try to put yourself in the shoes of searchers. What would they query to find you? Your name/business name, location, products, etc., are important. It’s also helpful to use the same terms in your site that your users might type (e.g., you might be a trained “flower designer” but most searchers might type [florist]), and to answer the questions they might have (e.g., store hours, product specs, reviews). It helps to know your customers.

    I’d suggest including them in your titles as well.

    Matt Cutts has talked about keywords a lot in various Webmaster Help videos. If you want to make sure you’re getting keywords right, I’d advise watching some of these discussions (straight from the horse’s mouth). They’re generally short, and won’t require a lot of time: