Keyword Stuffing Ethical?

[greek39]

According to Wikipedia keyword stuffing is considered an unethical SEO technique. Some webmasters stuff them in their Meta tags some place-hidden text within their page amongst many other methods. But the intent remains the same to artificially inflate or misrepresent and be place in unrelated indexes thus skewing or spamming the index.

The point, what are your thoughts regarding Keyword Stuffing?

greek39

[universal4]

Well, putting them in the meta tags isn't so bad, but they should only be there if the page is related to them....besides meta tags are not looked at by the engines very closely anyway.

Hiding them in hidden text on the pages...I agree that to be a bad method. If other webmasters see that and file reports that will certainly work against you if many complaints are filed.

Stuffing articles with keywords is a double-edge sword I think.

If they are pertinent to the article, and it isn't overdone then I think this to be fine....but if you overdo it and overuse keywords than that too can work against you.

Rick
Universal4

[greek39]

Totally agree Rick my thoughts exactly!

Lets see what others might have too say.

greek39

[thepokerkeep]

Some key words will appear naturally over and over in web pages. For example, on a poker website, the word poker will appear dozens of times on a page... it's nearly impossible for it NOT to happen.

I think Google and the other SE's take that into account.

Hidden text is a whole different animal - definitely blackhat seo.

Meta tag stuffing - I think we all do it to some extent - that's what they're there for! But - only with relevant keywords!! I know when I see a site that has weird description text in Google, I pass it and visit a site with a description (meta tag) that makes sense.

Here is the keyword count for "poker" on one of my sites:
Title: 1: 7: 14.3%
Body: 97: 1285: 7.5%
Links: 63: 309: 20.4%
Bold: 30: 226: 13.3%
Meta description: 3: 33: 9.1%

[TheGooner]

I think that if "keyword stuffing" is the worst unethical thing that we have to worry about then it will be a pretty pleasent world.


If the keywords relate to the content and theme of the page, then I have no problem with a webmaster labelling images alts with whatever related term they want.

The demands of the google algo (and all the other search engines ) have meant that webmaster have had to resort to some pretty aggressive in order to rank highly.

The funniest keywork stuffing I see are those template sites that actually do it right out in the open. The opening paragraphs on the front page are full of un-natural search engine terms that read poorly strung together.

That's obvious "stuffing" but not unethical - just the desperate attempts of a webmaster to get rankings. Blame the SE's not the webmaster.

[Renee]

There is a person who will remain nameless who keyword stuffs their posts on a forum I frequent and it's so bad that when they post they go off on a tangent talking about stuff that's not even relevant to the topic anymore... It ruins the whole thread because people can't recover from it. It just stops the threads dead.


So unproductive. I think it shouldn't be allowed in forums personally.

Just my 2 cents.

[casinojack]

Depends oh how you define stuffing, but im all in!

again, as long as the words pertinent, why not....If is a good article and you have repeated it a lot is all good....

Hidden text is fun, but lasts like a couple days then ban hammer...

[greek39]

Not sure if key search engines pay much attention to keywords nowadays.

Keyword Stuffing 101

Keywords were one method search engines would use to rank websites. Keywords are a reflection of one’s content.

EG. Five hundred words of content discussing a topic say “Pool Cleaning.” I write the content then pick out those keywords I feel are most relevant. Next I form a meta tag description and meta tag keywords. Good SEO in my opinion.

But what happens when your meta tag keywords are not relevant or far exceed your content?

EG. Five hundred words of content discussing a topic say “Pool Cleaning.” Except now in my meta keywords I include 500 words totally unrelated to my content. I may use words such as nachos, free CD’s etc… Or I may use an over abundance of keywords some legitimate with varying degrees of typo errors. Such as online gambling, oline gambling, gambli, gamb, gam, ga, line, fishing, etc..

The image below is a perfect example of keyword stuffing both in the hidden form and the meta tag form. I should mention this is an gambling affiliate who pushes porn along side one brand. Also his earnings are likely more than all us put together. So is it really Ethical to compete using malcious and decpetive practices? I mean any one can do this there is no thought involved.


greek39

[greek39]

The reason for asking basically two reasons,

1. Gauge what other webmasters thoughts are about the subject.
2. Over the last 3 years I have been submitting spam reports 5days/week 5/day. And yes I feel like Forrest Gump when he decides to run non-stop for 3 years. Think I am tired of submitting them.

Sneaky deceptive practices for monetary gain IMO are indeed Unethical.

greek39

[greek39]

Originally Posted by Renee

There is a person who will remain nameless who keyword stuffs their posts on a forum I frequent and it's so bad that when they post they go off on a tangent talking about stuff that's not even relevant to the topic anymore... It ruins the whole thread because people can't recover from it. It just stops the threads dead.


So unproductive. I think it shouldn't be allowed in forums personally.

Just my 2 cents.

Any hints?

greek39