SEO Glossary: Keyword Stuffing

What is Keyword Stuffing?

In order to signal a certain topic or relevance to search engines, the use of keywords in content is necessary and useful. However, if webmasters try to use search terms artificially and excessively in the page content, this can lead to keyword stuffing.

 

Search engines now work with sophisticated algorithms so that they quickly recognize keyword stuffing. Possible success in the form of a high ranking does not last long in this case, as a penalty usually follows.

 

Besides the frequent use of keywords in texts, there is also another form of keyword stuffing. The method is also known as "hidden text". Thus, webmasters try to insert keywords in white color on a white background. For the reader, of course, the keywords are not visible, for search engine crawlers however, they are.

 

 

At what point is keyword stuffing present?

It is not possible to calculate exactly when a search engine classifies content as keyword stuffing. Among other things, it is important how often a word phrase appears. In addition, it is also important how extensive the text content on a page is.

 

Here also plays the KEYWORD DENSITY also plays an important role. It indicates how large the ratio between a search term and the total number of words on a page is. In order to carry out a corresponding evaluation, the WDF/IDF factor. It not only calculates how often a keyword appears in the content. At the same time, it shows the relationship between a keyword and other search terms in the content.

 

A keyword should never be used in excess. Naturalness and a clean reading flow are important in order to create added value. However, if the use of a keyword is deliberately exaggerated, this can have negative consequences.

 

 

What is the importance of keyword stuffing for SEO?

If search engines such as Google recognize keyword stuffing, a penalty is imposed in the form of a loss of visibility and ranking. As a result, individual or several subpages slide further down in the search results and are no longer found. Organic traffic decreases.

 

In addition, keyword stuffing can lead to texts that are not easy to read. This may result in website visitors abandoning their visit prematurely in order to switch to another page. This in turn has a negative impact on dwell time, which is also an important factor for SEO.

 

What measures against keyword stuffing are useful?

 

If webmasters would like to take appropriate measures against keyword stuffing, the following tips will help:

 

• When creating content, it makes sense to use appropriate tools for WDF/WDF, for example. Here, a corresponding evaluation is carried out with correction if necessary.

 

• Keywords should not be used exclusively in texts to send signals to search engines. Here also the use in headlines, meta tags, image descriptions and co. helps.

 

• Keywords should always be used sensibly and logically. Under no circumstances should they be integrated with all their might. This can have a negative impact on the flow of reading. Quality before quantity.