Keyword Density

[John Scott]

I think most folks would be best served to simply forget about keyword density. It hardly ever achieves rankings, and more often results in loss of rankings due to abuse.

[Cricket]

The ONLY reason I check density is to give myself an indicator of my overall usage of my primary key phrase.

Often people are shocked to discover that they have not used their key PHRASE as a whole anywhere on their page. They have bits and pieces of it, but have neglected to use the full phrase together within their content. It is pretty tough to convince the search engines that your page is about the selected topic when you don't include it within the content. (Unless you have a TON of incoming links using that phrase.)

On the opposite end of the scale people OVERUSE their key phrase and it no longer comes across naturally. Taking a quick peek at your density will let you know this also.

The key is to find BALANCE in your content. It is not about density. It is about focusing your writing on a specific topic.

Just my

[Costin Trifan]

On the opposite end of the scale people OVERUSE their key phrase and it no longer comes across naturally. Taking a quick peek at your density will let you know this also.

The key is to find BALANCE in your content. It is not about density. It is about focusing your writing on a specific topic.

Fully agree with this one.

[divalicious]

Originally Posted by Cricket

The key is to find BALANCE in your content. It is not about density. It is about focusing your writing on a specific topic.

Just my

Definitely.. BALANCE is key in creating/ doing a content.

[NothingButNet]

Originally Posted by John Scott

I think most folks would be best served to simply forget about keyword density. It hardly ever achieves rankings, and more often results in loss of rankings due to abuse.

As far as I know Google doesn't give a damn on keyword density anymore (OK, unless we talk about abuse). I've heard something about them trying to go with the flow and provide for natural search results (like hakia and powerset). And today I even read something about "Universal Search". Is this true?

[temyong]

Originally Posted by NothingButNet

As far as I know Google doesn't give a damn on keyword density anymore (OK, unless we talk about abuse). I've heard something about them trying to go with the flow and provide for natural search results (like hakia and powerset). And today I even read something about "Universal Search". Is this true?

Yeah, I agree with you how about Yahoo?

[David E]

Originally Posted by John Scott

I think most folks would be best served to simply forget about keyword density. It hardly ever achieves rankings, and more often results in loss of rankings due to abuse.

Indeed it is dead and has been dead for a while now.

[peter_d]

It hardly ever achieves rankings

Agreed. If there is an effect, it barely registers compared to other factors.

Also, there's an opportunity cost to keyword density. By incorporating semantic variations, you stand to gain more long tail traffic...

[David E]

Mention a phrase on a page once and that is all you need to do if that.

[mabel01]

instead of focusing on density, is it worth it if we prioritized the prominence?

[khaty]

prominence and proximity of keywords.