Hi everyone..

I think it's a very interesting dilemma. In the one hand we try to put as much keywords as we can in the content, make title for the images and also we title links.
In the other hand, we try not to look as spammers (becuase we are simply not) and to avoid BAD points in google.

There is any limit of keywords (in title, image-alts, link-title etc.) or other things we take care of in the preparation for google crawls?

What do u do when in the one hand you make your site ready for crawls, and in the other hand avoid looking like a spammer....

I read alot of articles, but I think it's better to hear the public in this issue.

Thanks in advance,

Guy

As far as I know...

In title: less than 75 chars
In keywords: 200 - 250 chars

In general, alt chars should not be used for keyword stuffing.

does extra bold or linking makes it spamming ..., I mean how google can sense EXTRA bold or so in algorighm, if google can, they are terrific....

kashyap

Originally Posted by vivekar

As far as I know...

In title: less than 75 chars
In keywords: 200 - 250 chars

In general, alt chars should not be used for keyword stuffing.

vivekar, Did you expirience any changes in your ranking while using thos lengths?

Title: keep it to 15/16 words max., so really not very long at all.

Keywords: Limit total keywords/phrases to 200-400 char, don't repeat a keyphrase, and don't repeat any individual word more than 5/6 times

Hope that helps.

Damascus.

Did you experience any changes in your ranking while using those lengths?

Not much significantly. I usually avoid very very long titles to avoid the trouble. Still the results are encouraging. Besides the results vary from engine to engine. It is hard to conclude with my limited numbers.

Originally Posted by vivekar

Not much significantly. I usually avoid very very long titles to avoid the trouble. Still the results are encouraging. Besides the results vary from engine to engine. It is hard to conclude with my limited numbers.

Yep, that's a good point. I think the point is to keep everything resonable...

While the goal of spammers is keyword stuffing, there are good reasons not only to stay within approximate length values but to think as brief and to-the-point as possible.

In reality, the page will only rank well if you target about 2 or 3 keywords/keyphrases. So here's an idea: By keeping the title length within the limits of what is displayed in search engine results, you can use your important keywords in a short, eye-catching sentence (or even pose a question) that the user can see. Who knows, maybe the #2 result will get more clicks than #1. Instead of choosing a title such as the top ranked site did,

"Widgets, Red Widgets, Blue Widgets, Redish-Blue Widgets, Widget Catalogue and..."

Your #2 listing reads,

"Complete Widget Listings with Red, Blue and Every Widget in Between!"

Spammers miss the entire point of writing copy for web sites. Your visitor must be your number one priority. Search Engine Optimization is always important but keep your visitor in mind at all times.

Originally Posted by shadylane

While the goal of spammers is keyword stuffing, there are good reasons not only to stay within approximate length values but to think as brief and to-the-point as possible.

In reality, the page will only rank well if you target about 2 or 3 keywords/keyphrases. So here's an idea: By keeping the title length within the limits of what is displayed in search engine results, you can use your important keywords in a short, eye-catching sentence (or even pose a question) that the user can see. Who knows, maybe the #2 result will get more clicks than #1. Instead of choosing a title such as the top ranked site did,

"Widgets, Red Widgets, Blue Widgets, Redish-Blue Widgets, Widget Catalogue and..."

Your #2 listing reads,

"Complete Widget Listings with Red, Blue and Every Widget in Between!"

Spammers miss the entire point of writing copy for web sites. Your visitor must be your number one priority. Search Engine Optimization is always important but keep your visitor in mind at all times.

Welcome aboard mate, congrats for your first post...

seriously talk about a great first post!

shadylane is spot on.

I think it is amazing how far some sites are willing to go in terms of keyword stuffing. I am constantly having to look at sites and judge them on what techniques they are using and some of them are just so blatent.

OK so they may have reached the first page but at what cost?

Let me disagree with you all regarding the length of the title tag. It should be 60 characters or less. The point is that no search engine lists more than 60 characters in the results.

The most important keywords should be placed near the beggining if possible. Avoid using your company/website name in the beggining.

Keyword repetitiveness when the keywords are very close together will almost completely negate their presence. The "good" Google spammers will always have their repeated words spaced out with a few in between them (something along the lines of "I like [keyword] because I have found that [keyword] is a very good [keyword], and the fact that [keyword] has always been reliable in all my time using [keyword]..."

The title tag is too small of an area to be completely spammable. Attempts at this are more easily caught by Google than traditional content spamming.

Shadylane, welcome to the forums. You made some very good points.

Vivekar, that point you made about ALT text stuffing has actually had me worried for a while. Simply to make my site more compatible with text-only browsers, I usually copy all the textual contents of a given image into its ALT text. In some cases, I have many paragraphs of text displayed in this fashion. I hope it doesn't come back to haunt me later on!

To sum things up a bit, my general balance of keywords is as follows:

• Use the keyword once in the title
• Use the keyword once in the keywords
• Use the keyword once in the description
• Use the keyword on a heading tag
• Use the keyword twice or more in the content area
• Have links coming to that page on your site using the keyword as the anchor text

I've found this to be quite successful. I have a first page position on a site I did just that for as a trial run--using the term "DRX 9000" as a keyword on http://www.medmaninst.com/drx9000.php.

Vivekar, that point you made about ALT text stuffing has actually had me worried for a while. Simply to make my site more compatible with text-only browsers, I usually copy all the textual contents of a given image into its ALT text. In some cases, I have many paragraphs of text displayed in this fashion. I hope it doesn't come back to haunt me later on!

Google doesn't read alt tags unless they are used in a link. You should be fine there.

The best idea is to only target one or two keywords per page. This is because when you share your title/anchor text out the weight for each word is decreased. If you're targeting a lot of keywords it makes it almost pointless to use it in the title tag, and it takes a lot more themed links.

Very true. I usually use the common form of "Website Name > Page Name" for my titles (ie - "Widget Corporation > About Us"). This gets the point across for the two main things I'm trying to advertise: my company and my main keyphrase.

But are you trying to get every page on your site listed for your company name? I used to do that, but I stopped because it decreased the weight for my keyphrase in the title tag.

True, but it also makes your page titles much more user-friendly and meaningful. For example, having a title such as "Contact Us" is not going to do any good when bookmarked. I want my users to associate the product/service/information that they're looking at with my company.

Most of the page titles that I post on a given website will not be keyphrases that I would ever want to use alone. Examples would be About Us, Contact Us, Services, Prices, etc. Those would make terrible titles when left alone. But when combined with the company name, they suddenly become very descriptive.

If the company name by itself doesn't say what it is they offer, I may consider changing "prices" to "web design prices," "services" to "web development services," etc. But most of the time, the companies that I work with have the main keyword in their company title anyway (ie--Medical Management Institute, The Bank Nightclub, PHG Financial Services, etc.).

Snowblind, do you do SEO for a job by any chance? You seem to be quite knowledgable in what you're doing; I'd like to see it put to work.

Of corse, when you're using generic page titles that you have no chance to rank for, it may be a good idea to throw your company name on. Just for the user though, nothing else. What is best though is finding a unique page title that a lot of people search. The Overture keyword selector tool is pretty good for that. http://inventory.overture.com/d/sear...ry/suggestion/

Just remember that every page on your site is considered different. Just because your Contact page says, lets say, Webdesign it will not boost your homepage in any way for Webdesign. However with that said - it can be a good idea to use the keyword on another page because they get tied together in the SERPS, and having 2 positions up there looks good and is bound to get more clicks.

Snowblind, do you do SEO for a job by any chance? You seem to be quite knowledgable in what you're doing; I'd like to see it put to work.

Nope I just learnt off the best.

I use that tool at least once a week... it's very handy. I generally scroll about a quarter of the way down and pick a keyword in that range--not too competitive, but not unpopular.