What is Keyword Stuffing: Definition, Guideline and Examples

Keyword Stuffing Definition:

Keyword stuffing is the process of loading a webpage with keywords in order to improve rankings.

The problem with this technique, however, is that Google’s algorithms are programmed to penalize websites for spamming search results pages.

Too many occurrences of one keyword can lead to decreased ranking on Google and other search engines.

What does Google think of Keyword Stuffing?

Google condemns keyword stuffing and is actively against it. Google can give you a penalty for Keyword Stuffing.

Google has several patents that involve spam detection systems that check for keyword stuffing in a webpage.

This patent states that websites might be inspected automatically or manually to determine if they should be added to the index or not.

If the site is a part of a link farm, is hijacked, or uses keyword stuffing/invisible unrelated text it might be placed on a blacklist and will not be added to the index.

How do Spammers use Keyword Stuffing?

Spammers used keyword stuffing to trick search engines and improve their search rankings.

Back in the day when Google was not as smart as it is now, spammers could trick the search engine by inserting a lot of keywords into their content.

This made it seem like they were more relevant for users' searches than other pages.

In reality, these pages were made for search engine crawlers, not humans.

Spammers used every possible way to insert their keywords into the content, even in the source code of the page.

Since then Search Engines wised up and can detect these black hat tactics easily.

These are some of the places they used to insert/stuff their keywords:

As you can see there are a lot of visible keyword stuffing techniques that spammers used once, but now you can focus on these and make sure you don't stuff keywords.

Does Google Penalize for Keyword Stuffing?

Yes, Google does penalize for keyword stuffing as they count it as a black hat tactic of getting better rankings.

This penalty can be seen through lower rankings and more importantly, less traffic coming from search engine results pages (SERP).

Although keyword stuffing is a dead tactic, Google still detects it and penalizes you for it.

Keyword Stuffing Examples

An example of keyword stuffing is to include your keyword (or its variations) in every sentence of a paragraph.

For instance, "John Smith was looking for a new york electrician who knows how to fix electrical wiring in new york because he had his house electrically re-wired."

The goal behind this strategy would be that when people are searching Google using phrases like "fixing electrical wiring", Google would think that your page would be more relevant than others and rank better and higher organically and potential customers would find you first, instead of your competitors.

Of course, this tactic doesn't work anymore.

How Do You Fix Keyword Stuffing?

In order to fix keyword stuffing in your article, first, you must make sure you are actually keyword stuffing and then replace those words, phrases with other synonyms, new words, or entirely remove them and rewrite your article

Remember, you should still use keywords in your content like your primary keyword and secondary ones, but at the same time use it in a way that provides search engines clarity and not the way around.

If you follow these tips, you can fully avoid keyword stuffing on your page.

Keyword Stuffing Checker Tools

There are a lot of tools out there that can help you with identifying potential keyword stuffing issues.

Some of these tools are:

• Link Assistant's Website Auditor
• Seobility TF*IDF Checker
• Ryte
• Small SEO Tools Keyword Density Checker
  

What is the Difference Between Keyword Stuffing & KW Placement?

Placing your keywords in the article you are writing in the right places and the right number of times is not harmful.

Placing them in every single phrase in your article is considered harmful and is keyword stuffing.

The key here is to determine the Keyword Density of the Top 5 ranking articles and align your keyword density to theirs.

Keyword Stuffing in Google My Business

Spammers also use Keyword Stuffing to get a better ranking in the Google Maps area of Google, by inserting the keywords into the Business Name of their Google My Business profile.

Google has a patent of a system, that specifically looks at Google My Business profiles to find fraudulent businesses and business listings.

This system look determines a "surprisingness" value for certain combinations of words and how likely it is that the word combination has been seen before in legitimate business names.

This "surprisingness" value then can be used as a guide to determine if the business is real or it is a fraudulent listing.

For example, spammers might make a business title for your company sound like it is the same as another well-known company. They do this so they can show that other company in search results more often.

If a business title has too many unusual words or combinations of words, the business listing is likely to be fraudulent and may not be listed at all.

Small businesses can protect themselves against this by following Google guidelines for good SEO practices.

Can You Use Too Many Keywords?

Yes, you can definitely use too many keywords in an article. 

If your article isn't written in a natural way and is filled with unnaturally places keywords, it will count as keyword stuffing and Google can penalize your website for it.

What Percentage of Keyword Density is Keyword Stuffing?

There is no certain percentage of Keyword Density that could be considered keyword stuffing.

You can insert ten keywords into a 300 word article, and have a 3.3% keyword density and you can add the same amount of keywords to a 3000 word article, and end up with a 0.3% keyword density.

There is also no ideal percentage of keyword density for a keyword. Instead of looking at keyword density, you should look at calculating TF*IDF for your article.