Keyword Density for SEO A Myth

January 23rd, 2009 Christine Posted in SEO |

Recently I was given a report by someone about a check that was done on the web page on how SEO friendly it is. One of the things I noticed was that the concept of keyword density still featured prominently in the document.

The fact of the matter is (as far as anything in the SEO world can be said to be ‘facts’ - educated guesses, then if you wish) that the keyword density of a page and the way that it influences your page’s ranking in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages) might just be a myth. Is probably a myth. Well, let me state my personal opinion - is basically the same as the flat earth theory - it feels like common sense but is really just not true. (Not my own analogy, I have to hasten to add, this is also someone else’s opinion on the whole matter - see also http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/seo-blog/index.php/keyword-density-seo-myth/)

Why do I say that ?

Apart from that fact that one can show the famous examples of pages that are ranking well in Google for certain terms with these terms having a keyword density of exactly 0%, it is also a fact that nowhere in Yahoo or Google’s patents of their search engine algorithms include any reference to keyword density at all.

The point is that in B.G. days (Before Google) search engines didn’t have much else to go on with regards to trying to figure out what a page is all about, however, Google’s algorithm completely changed the way that search engines work. Admittedly, we all know that the alorithm is this BIG SECRET with the BIG SECRET recipe for the BIG SECRET sauce, however, if you look at the following article from SEOMOZ where they rank the factors that a group of Internet Marketing/SEO experts deem to be important, one can see that ‘keyword density’ as such does not even feature, although one can argue that it is similar to the factor ‘keyword use in body text’.

http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

My own stance on it is that I do not ever measure keyword density explicitly. Yes, it IS going to be more difficult to rank for a page if your main keywords that you are trying to rank for does not even appear on the page, so obviously it makes sense to use your keywords in your web page itself, however, I do not obsess with keyword density measures.

Keywords should be used in the following places in a web page:

In the title of the page
In the H1, H2 etc tags, although if I can’t get that done since I am using a CMS that doesn’t allow for using these tags in the headings of the page I do not obsess about it either
In the url of the page, if possible.
Keywords should also certainly be used in the body text of the page. But please write your content for your website visitors, and not to comply to some arbitrary rule that is as outdated and mythical as the abominable snowman.

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