What is keyword stuffing?
Keyword stuffing is an out-out-of-date SEO tactic that attempted to influence search rankings for a specific page, for a specific keyword, by including that keyword on that page as many times as possible. Sometimes this meant working the keyword or phrase into poorly constructed sentences such as the following:
If you’re wondering “What is Keyword Stuffing?” you have probably been reading lots of articles about what keyword stuffing is. “What is Keyword Stuffing” can be answered lots of ways, but you have to look at examples to know what keyword stuffing is.
Google, for the last several years, has officially claimed that keyword stuffing is bad for SEO. So the question “What is Keyword Stuffing” is useful then only to the extent that it can help SEOs and content writers avoid keyword stuffing for SEO.
What Is Keyword Stuffing? It’s What This Article Is Doing
If you want to know what is keyword stuffing, it is what this article is doing.
I am deliberately using keyword stuffing to see if keyword stuffing can work for SEO in 2017 despite what Google says. Just as an experiment.
Can Keyword Stuffing Help Rank for the Term “What Is Keyword Stuffing?” Let’s See Who Is Currently Ranking for “What Is Keyword Stuffing?”
Who is currently ranking for “What Is Keyword Stuffing?” Here’s the first page of Google for the search query as of this writing (October 9, 2017):
- Irrelevant keywords – Search Console Help – Google Support
- Keyword Stuffing – Moz
- Understanding the Dangers of Keyword Stuffing | WordStream
- Keyword Stuffing – SEO.com
- What is keyword stuffing and why to avoid it | BigCommerce
- Keyword stuffing – Wikipedia
- Keyword Stuffing Definition – SEO Glossary | Searchmetrics
- Keyword Stuffing: What it is, and how to avoid it | Yola
- What is keyword stuffing? Webopedia Definition
- What is keyword stuffing? – Definition from WhatIs.com
And, note the section at the bottom, “Searches related to what is keyword stuffing?” (often useful for latent semantic indexing purposes and introducing greater sophistication into a keyword stuffing operation):
- keyword stuffing example
- keyword stuffing penalty
- keyword stuffing 10%
- keyword stuffing amazon
- keyword stuffing 2017
- keyword stuffing percentage
- google keyword stuffing
- keyword stuffing checker
This Blog Will Never Be On the First Page for “What Is Keyword Stuffing?”
I know that no matter what, this blog post will never be on the first page for “what is keyword stuffing?” Those page one results are chock full of useful, informational articles from highly authoritative sites. This is not any of those things!
While other results for “what is keyword stuffing” align closely with Google’s dictum, “Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context,” this one does something different. It provides an actual example of keyword stuffing, which, in its way, could help someone wondering what keyword stuffing is to answer their question, “what is keyword stuffing?”
So, I know this won’t be on the first page, or anywhere near it, for the search term “what is keyword stuffing?”
But if I can get anywhere on the first ten pages or so, it would at least demonstrate that the penalty against keyword stuffing is not so extreme as some would have you believe. Stay tuned!
(Once more, for good measure: What Is Keyword Stuffing?)
UPDATE—10/13/2017 (Four Days after Publication)
After publishing this blog post and submitting it to Google’s index, I kept a close eye on how it ranked for “What Is Keyword Stuffing?”
After initial publication, it ranked at the bottom of page three. Not too shabby, considering. Ranks slipped steadily from there. Yesterday it was sitting at #52.
Then, when I checked this morning, the page had been completely deindexed:
The conclusion? Keyword stuffing is as bad as they say it is.
I guess I probably didn’t need to do an experiment to establish that.
I can’t remember exactly what I searched for but this page was position 3…maybe keyword stuffing does work?