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It's known that keyword stuffing may be penalized by search engines. But what if I add a section titled "keywords", somewhere at the bottom of the page, with various forms of the keywords which are related to the page?

Would search engines realize that that wouldn't have much negative effect on user experience? Or would that, too, be considered keyword stuffing?

ispiro
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    Are you linking to a list of topics like a tags option?? What is the point of doing this? Can you help us understand the motivation? Otherwise, this was an old trick that Google frowns on and generally does nothing for you. Keep in mind that Google and Bing are almost completely semantic search engines these days. Read this answer: http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/81551/why-would-a-website-with-keyword-stuffing-rank-higher-than-one-without-in-google/81552#81552 it will help you to understand things a bit. – closetnoc Jun 03 '15 at 19:30
  • @closetnoc I mean different words that people might search for, which means they might want to see this page. See my other question here for an example. – ispiro Jun 03 '15 at 20:37
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    @ispiro You are defining, quite literally, tags. Every platform has tags. Millions of people use them daily. Just don't abuse them or add too many and you will be fine. Treat them like useful portals to related information, similar list, or targeted human profile. – dhaupin Jun 03 '15 at 20:58
  • @dhaupin How do search engines distinguish tags from keyword stuffing? (This is important so I can know what to do and what not to do.) – ispiro Jun 03 '15 at 21:12
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    @inspiro well if all results of clicking tags are consistent with url schema, it will begin to realize they are another form of "taxamony" just like a category. You still don't want to stuff them, mind your density. Read the content back to yourself. If it sounds stuffed and unnatural then mix it up, fix it up :) – dhaupin Jun 03 '15 at 21:41
  • Having clickable "tags" is one thing, but your last paragraph seems to suggest that these "keywords" are purely to benefit search ranking and not users. "wouldn't have much negative effect on user experience" - they should only be on the page if they provide a positive user experience. – MrWhite Jun 04 '15 at 15:49

3 Answers3

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Google may frown at the idea. Take a look at:

https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/avoid-keyword-stuffing/

I'd go against adding keywords as tags to the site unless your site is about people creating their own tags. The reason I say that is because adding them increases your keyword density percentage for a certain keyword and may affect your prominence level for the words you're trying to rank.

Take a look at:

http://textalyser.net

and paste all the textual content from your site into their text box and run the scan. Try to aim for 2% to 5% keyword density as anything more than 10% might look too spammy. This value can be found under "frequency" column in the results page.

The only way I'd say go for it is if the words are inside an image.

Mike -- No longer here
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More than likely yes.

You need to be using the key phrases naturally throughout the content.

If you're covering the topic in enough detail, the chances are that Google will know what you're referring to and rank you appropriately.

Gone are the days when Google simply counts the words on the page - it's much more about the topic that page covers and the quality of the content.

In short - no it's not a good idea.

Sam Barnes
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"keywords" seems a little technical. I'd trying to label it something that wouldn't turn off users.

Top searches

  • Blue widgets
  • Widgets in blue
  • Azure thing-a-whizits

Doing something like this is fairly common practice and can get synonyms onto the page easily.

Stephen Ostermiller
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