Keyword stuffing
There are a number of “grayhat” techniques website operators use to improve their website’s rankings in search engine pages (SERP’s). One of these has been the belief that employing keywords liberally throughout their content, at just the right levels, will elevate their site in search results. The service provider marketplaces are replete with requests for “SEO copywriters” who can write copy with just the right percentage of keyword usage.
With information we have learned from those in the know at Google, at least a portion of the search engine’s algorithm is structured to recognize “quality” written content. Quality content is relevant, useful and natural writing, something the algorithm recognizes as such. This is where the concept of keyword stuffing often comes into conflict with the aim of companies like Google that are attempting to steer webmasters away from these more manipulative techniques like keyword stuffing.
I have read blog postings and web copy dozens of times that was obviously designed for the search engine and not the human reader. It reads as if a few words or phrases were being shot out of a machine gun and it becomes obvious that the content was not designed to benefit the human visitor to the site in any way. Often, the website operator has hired an “SEO writer” or copywriter, sometimes from a country where the primary language isn’t even English, to manufacture this type of manipulative content.
Will keyword stuffing work?
Will those websites end up at the top of search results? If you pay attention to the people with Google who have given out some hints about the last two algorithm updates, the answer is a definitive “no.” These grayhat techniques will actually penalize a website’s chances of high SERP rankings. This makes sense because web pages are meant to be read by humans and are not for the sole purpose of manipulating search results.
The “SEO writers” often charge pennies on the dollar to write this tripe and there are still thousands of website owners who pay them to come up with this kind of staged content. Google has made it clear that if a web page does not benefit a human reader, then it will be penalized and will not show high in search engine results, but there are still website owners who just don’t get this.
In the meantime, the service marketplace websites that bring “writers” and buyers together are full of ads for SEO copywriters who can write articles for a dollar for every hundred words or five dollars for 500 words. In the end, the website owner will get exactly what they pay for and their website will be lost in the search results never to be seen by anyone.
If that website is a business, the old adage about getting what you pay for will most surely be proven true again.
