Keyword stuffing was a popular approach since it produced results, at least temporarily.
What is Google’s current attitude about it?
Isn’t it true that if certain keywords are excellent, then more must be better? Keyword stuffing as a ranking factor follows this basic reasoning. Google rated site content using a rudimentary set of signals in the early days of web search, long before SEO was a thing.
One of such signs was the use of keywords. In the early days of search engines, the more keywords you utilized, the higher your website would rank.
Keyword stuffing was a popular approach since it produced results, at least temporarily.
But what is Google’s current attitude about it?
Here’s a look at the history of keyword stuffing accusations, as well as what the evidence indicates now.
Keyword Stuffing Is A Ranking Factor, According To The Claim Exact match terms used to be a powerful indicator. A page would have a good probability of ranking if a term appeared on it exactly as the user wrote it.
The practice of keyword stuffing began when people realized they could rank their websites for more inquiries by repeating multiple versions of phrases on a page.
If you use a lot of keywords, you can get away with it. This included anything from keyword stuffing in on-page material to keyword-only paragraphs.
A more extreme type of keyword stuffing includes having the text the same color as the page’s backdrop to hide paragraphs of keywords. When Google crawls the sites, it can detect hidden keywords, but consumers won’t notice anything out of the ordinary.
On-page material wasn’t the only place where keywords were crammed in. In order to influence search rankings, page names and meta descriptions were crammed with keywords.
This is what folks mean when they say that the early days of SEO were like the Wild West. Sites were not only unaffected by keyword stuffing, but they were also more likely to gain from it.
Then the Google Updates Begin to Roll Out
When Google released the Florida update in 2003, which is considered Google’s first big algorithm update, the impact of term stuffing on search ranks altered.
According to evidence: the Florida update largely targeted link spam, although other spamming approaches were also impacted. Although Florida lessened the influence of keyword stuffing on rankings, the practice was still rewarded by Google’s algorithms.
Google announced the Panda update in 2011, which targeted low-quality websites and material with little or no additional value.
As a result, keyword-stuffed pages were usually degraded in search results, as they added less value to the web than pages that weren’t intended to fool search engines.
Following Panda, Google strongly warned against keyword stuffing.
Finally, we can’t discuss the evolution of keywords in SEO without addressing Google’s Hummingbird upgrade, which was released in 2013.
Hummingbird introduced Google’s first conversational search, allowing users to submit queries in normal language and have Google’s algorithm comprehend what they were looking for.
After this modification, people’s approaches to content production shifted, especially when it came to the usage of keywords in an artificial way. It’s possible that Hummingbird was the catalyst for the change away from generating content for search engines and toward writing content for people.
Keyword stuffing was done solely to influence search engine results and provided no benefit to users. Now that Google’s search algorithm is better at spotting excellent material, it’s an outdated strategy.
Keyword Stuffing As A Ranking Factor: The Evidence
Keyword stuffing isn’t a ranking factor, as evidenced by Google’s search results page names that flow organically, meta descriptions that contain paragraphs of genuine material, and articles that aren’t stuffed with exact-match terms are all features of today’s SERPs.
However, this is only anecdotal evidence. Let’s take a look at some real data straight from the source. Keyword stuffing is acknowledged in a chapter labeled “irrelevant terms” in Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, which sites must follow in order to stay indexed in search.
In conclusion, keyword stuffing as a ranking factor is not a good idea.
Keyword stuffing has been proven to have a detrimental impact on search engine rankings.
Attempting to manipulate search rankings by using the same terms or phrases over and again will only result in a worse ranking in Google’s search results. Any advice that implies different should be avoided.
“‘Keyword stuffing’ is the practice of loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to influence a site’s rank in Google search results.’ These are the words
Frequently encountered in a list or group, as well as out of context (not as natural prose). Filling pages with keywords or data degrades the user experience and reduces the ranking of your site.
Concentrate on producing meaningful, information-rich material that makes proper and contextual use of keywords.”