Over-Optimization Can Be Harmful.

byrobys53

261 followers

6 months ago

Over-Optimization Can Be Harmful.

Search engine optimization is generally beneficial. When you develop something valuable - an essay, a product page, or even a free tool - it makes it easier for people to locate it via search.

But how far can you go? Is it possible to over-optimize?

Google answers "yes" in two ways.

As Gary Ilyes of Google puts it, harmful over-optimization is "optimizing so much that at some point it starts to hurt." It is possible to work so hard to rank well that your pages become close to spam, and Google may cut or eliminate your content's ranking.

Google is now quite good at recognizing and disregarding various sorts of over-optimization. Some tactics, however, are still subject to manual penalties.

Keyword overuse

The technique of cramming a page with keywords to rank higher for those keywords is known as keyword stuffing.

Keyword stuffing is easy to spot: keywords and synonyms are repeated repeatedly in phrases and paragraphs that don't make sense.

It's a good idea to include keywords in relevant areas like titles and meta descriptions: They indicate to both robots and humans that your page is focused on a given topic.

However, although keyword targeting might help pages appear in search results for relevant queries, keyword stuffing can have the reverse effect, turning applicable content into spam.

More keywords are only sometimes better for Google; some sites even appear for keywords they don't use.

Creating hyperlinks with precise match anchor text

The clickable words in a link to your website are called anchor text. This link, for example, has the anchor text "Google rankings":

This anchor text is known as exact match anchor text if it matches the target keyword of the website it is connecting to.

This may be useful: The anchor text of your backlinks is used by Google to determine what the website is about (and what it should rank for).

However, many backlinks with exact match keyword anchors can indicate to Google that links were purchased or influenced, which is against Google's spam standards.

Natural backlink profiles have a variety of anchor text, including some exact match keywords but also many more partial match keywords, brand references, bare URLs, image links, and random words.

Optimizing every meta description and title tag

Meta descriptions and title tags make your article stand out in search results and encourage visitors to click.

When it comes to getting more hits, it may be tempting to write or modify every single meta description and title tag, but this is a lot of time and work wasted.

Even on solid sites, many pages receive minimal Google traffic, so you'd be updating material that no one would view.