Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Search Engine Ranking Density - Part 1


By Jose Nuñez



This article will guide you through the main myths around keyword density and SEO. Even though keyword density should be a part of your SEO efforts, there is a lot of confusion about what "density" is and how to apply it properly.

There are 2 ways of calculating density.

The basic method consists of measuring the number of times a keyword appears on the page as a percentage of the total word count of that page. The complex method consists of measuring keyword density of the page plus the text components in meta tags: Title, Keywords, Alt Text, Description, and Comments. Most SEOs refer to the first method when talking about keyword density though. But, how do search engines measure keyword density? They actually use the complex method to measure it. I will explain later how to adjust to this.



Were should the keywords be used?

Diversify the density of your keywords in different areas of your page. Starting with the Title, and following with the beginning of the page, like in the headings, other sub-headings, and in the introductory paragraphs would certainly be of benefit. Every search engine algo is different, so you must choose an average keyword density that can make your site rank well in the top ten positions in the SERPs.



The importance of keyword density.

Keyword density can be very beneficial when done right, but it can also have a very negative influence when overdone. This is known as "keyword stuffing". When you stuff keywords in your page, this will be detected and your site will get penalized for doing so. This could go as far as getting your entire site blacklisted from a particular search engine, if you are found keyword stuffing too many times.



Visit our website for a full version of this Search Engine Ranking article.

About the author

Jose Nuñez is a Scientific SEO/SEM Specialist. He is the CTO of HiRank, an Online Resource focusing on Search Engines (SE) and Artificial Inteligence (AI) Find out more search engine ranking articles at: http://www.hirank.com/search_engine_ranking.html Or contact him at: jnunez@hirank.com or via phone at (801) 388-5961

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