Regarding Best White Hat Practices

[deki33]

As I see Ted never told about k density, but about matches.
So, Ted - is KD important or not ?

 

[semilar]

actually I was referring to matches and density in the questions in my last post, sorry for being unclear but it seems ipopbb does care way more about kd matches in html source then kd in the content.

ipopbb, how do we exactly measure the keyword density in the html source manually? the online checkers I found only measure the kd in the content.
should we simply copy/paste the source into a word document, let it count the words and then calculate the %?
is there an online tool?

thanks

 

[caroline42]

As I see Ted never told about k density, but about matches.
So, Ted - is KD important or not ?

Yes it is importand but I think often misunderstood.
I often improve rankings by lowering KW density (with a lot of trouble to make the site owner understand). To my observation it's all relative and depends on what the competition is doing. Could not find a surefire rule so far; every case is a new experiment but my last test for a site showed astonishing effects. After some trouble it seemed to have triggered a filter and fall back from #3 to second and 3rd page for about two months. All my linkbuilding was (almost) without effects, so I decided to run a risky test handling the problem with onpage changes. Removed the KW from the title and lowered KW density from 3.5% to 1.2% - guess what happened - two days later I found the site in question on #2 again.

 

[deki33]

Ted, can you tell us your opinion about KW density ?
Also I'm sometimes confused about it as all tools show different numbers.
For example if you compare KW density in SeoQuake, SeoBook SeoTools and WebSite Auditor (but you can add any other tool on the list), you will see that all show different numbers for word count and density.
Then question is how google measure it.

 

[ipopbb]

First: My apologies for the delay in getting back to these questions... got derailed.

I think what he is asking is:
you get the keyword density of every site in the top 10, how do you measure which keyword density is the right one to optimize your page for?

It's not a density... just numbers of exact matches in the HTML for all the variants. It is just empirically how many were used on each site. I'd imagine they all word together so if you are looking for 1 number I'd recommend the total of all the variant forms.

Do you have a formula like taking the average of the top 10 densities, a weighted average(first 1-4 weighted),

The 3 recommendation sections at the bottom reflect min,avg,max. They are a bit more sophisticated than that but in a general way they are close analogs to min avg and max.

The first set has the minimum values for specific factors that made it to page one. You can look at the first set as a theoretical minimum for page one. It probably wont get you there but you can be relatively certain that any less than those values will not suffice. If you can compete with the first set then you have 0 chance with this word.

The second set represents the average factor values that appeared on page one. This is the set that will likely get you to low page one or high page 2 if you have average backlinks for the niche.

The third set is probably what it would take to get to 1-2 and stay there with dominance. Its the ideal. You can probably get there with less investment than this.

Unless you are looking at very low competition keywords the first two sets are the most practical.

do you just look at the data and have a gut feeling...?

I always have gut feeling... I made the tool to save time and not depend as much on gut feelings. Its hard to eliminate all of it, but it is a step in the right direction.

Do you prefer the top 5 more then the rest?

No. I had 2 questions in mind when I made this tool. How can I measure how much work is needed to get to page 1? How much work will it take to stay there?

The second recommendation set estimates getting there.

The third set is where things need to go over time if the keyword is only going to grow more popular over time, which may or may not be true...

Or how do you find out which density is the "right one" for a given niche?

The report is base on a single search term like:

used cars

Google matches (you see these in bold in the SERPs) things like:
used cars,used car,car,used,cars,usedcars,usedcar,etc...

I count all the variants google recognizes as matches for content tuning that search.

Like look at the backlinks, and if 2 searches match in backlinks but one is ranking higher then the other, take that density...?

You're thinking too hard. Nothing that complex.

I am wondering too, because I think google sandboxed me for having 11% keyword density (main page was just showing first paragraphs of my articles, which all were optimized for my target keyword, and while the keyword density was ok for each given article, the sum of the paragraphs on the frontpage was overkill and I didn't figure I have to check that too.

I doubt it... I've run this report on lots of pages. Google Caffeine rewards keyword stuffers. If your number of keyword matches isn't absurd then you just wont rank well in most cases.

I am still indexed(site but my site was on 143 on a not very competitive keyword phrase, now its not in the index for the given keyword phrase (I searched through all pages...). Speaking of that, did you ever get sandboxed for a too high keyword density?

Nope. Never happen and I really really really tried and continue to. Doesn't mean it won't or can't happen. I've even narc'd a competitor or 2 for egregious keyword stuffing through our official rep when our ad spend was $1.5M and google refused to take action for unknown reasons. They are still dominating the SERPs with the craziest keyword densities I've every seen.

 

[ipopbb]

As I see Ted never told about k density, but about matches.
So, Ted - is KD important or not ?

Use either or both. Ultimately I'm starting to think the number of matches is more practical because I'm finding time and time again the following count:

HTML comments
Full urls
ID attributes
CSS class names
input values
input names
JS variable names
JS literal strings
etc...

Also density is misleading in smaller documents and insignificant in large documents. So if you tune to googles sweet spot for page size in your niche they both relative analogs of the same actionable information. One is just a lot easier to work with and communicate into specific actions.

 

[ipopbb]

I often improve rankings by lowering KW density (with a lot of trouble to make the site owner understand).

A very interesting reply! You got me thinking!

You may be on to something, but be careful... Increasing the page size into google's sweet spot would lower density and improve rankings in many cases. Additionally adding more keyword matches irrespective of density could be additionally beneficial. (At least that is what I tend to see quite frequently)

 

[ipopbb]

Ted, can you tell us your opinion about KW density ?
Also I'm sometimes confused about it as all tools show different numbers.
For example if you compare KW density in SeoQuake, SeoBook SeoTools and WebSite Auditor (but you can add any other tool on the list), you will see that all show different numbers for word count and density.
Then question is how google measure it.

I like KW density. It's a valid metric. I personally am using it less in favor of absolute scalar counts. I think the scalar counts are easier to work with, easier to communicate, less error margins with widely varying document sizes. In fact, a lack of keyword matches and/or a lack of document size for one result (a.k.a an outlier) is a flag that the result may be blessed by google for that search.

I don't know what google does for sure, but I have a theory. Wanna hear it?

Ok... I think google used kw density once upon a time many years ago and they found lots of problems with really big pages and really small pages. They decided to make statistical sweet spots for page sizes for keywords and then realized after adding that as a factor they were just wasting time and CPU calculating density. So to lower the operational costs of indexing the web I think they are now just counting all applicable match variants in the source before parsing structure.

This is also why I think google has come to favor pages that look like news articles and why blogs work well.

I could be wrong. I probably am wrong. I just haven't proven myself wrong yet and my results are getting better and better the more I rely on matches over densities. My results are from a very small sample of projects in very specific niches so take it with a grain of salt.

I don't want to tell you what to look at or what not to look at. If you can then look at it all. I might be wrong. Things might change. There are plenty of reasons to not treat it as a right or wrong comparison.

 

[ipopbb]

Also i understand you have done analysis of the top results for a search term but i do not think that will paint the most accurate picture even though it should help. Remember most of these incur major changes when they reach the first page and even more so the first spot of Google SERPS so what got them there in the first place may not be entirely clear.

I've seen this too an account for it in my reasoning. I did a post last year where I pointed out that my chart trends for factors as you move from #100 to #1 strongly suggested that a second algorithm was in play for page 1 and maybe part of page 2.

I feel comfortable with my approach because I personally don't have a reason to shoot for bottom of page 2 or worse. I simply don't spend time on those optimizations, because of 2 primary reasons. People don't pay me to target those placements and since Caffeine and Instant those placement empirically produce much less traffic in my niches that the cost/benefits flipped to not being worth my time.

Not all niches operate the same. For example "java HTTP examples" probably gets better than average page 2-5 traffic. Thats not a niche I'm in and its not a niche people pay me to compete in.

It's a good example of why you should take anyone's advice (including mine) as gospel.

The best thing to do in SEO i think is to test test test.

I think you state it better than I do. I always say... "change a little, but measure a lot." You version captures the spirit better.

What i am doing at present is looking at the top websites for a perticular search term and then taking all the statistics i think are helping it rank and then building sites to try and outrank these. Once my website does i go back to have a look at which variables have mattered or not tweaking each one as i go along.

Great minds do think alike...

Just out of interest to the OP, have you found that the varibales for SEO have changed dramatically over the last few years, or do you think most of the foundation stuff still remains with some tweaks here and there to improve the function?

Here is where I get myself into trouble again.... sigh... but ok, since you asked...

Everything changed mid march when Caffeine showed up in everybody's web stats. Any SEO advice predating mid-february of this year is probably wrong and sub-optimal for today.

Largely I think the factors are the same ones with profoundly different domains, ranges, weights, and conditional rules. For example... I have access to statistical data that strongly suggests PR has two boosting levels... PR3 and PR7.5(ish ... it's not all PR7s but the slightly better known PR7s and above) Proven... no... worth looking into ... hell yes. Standing up to personal scrutiny... so far for myself and the niches I track. Is it the strongest factor? no, but I put it in the top 4. Once again.. unproven and I wish I could share the data, but I can't. I can share my observations and hunches. Maybe someone else has data to support or debunk. Either way PR is playing a role and this is a pattern I think is rising above the noise statistically.

 

[TheTRUTH]

@iPopBB

Do security features on the site play any part in ranking?

for example I see a lot of the sites that are top performers have SSL along with Security Badges or BuySafe Bond logos

 

[ipopbb]

@iPopBB

Do security features on the site play any part in ranking?

for example I see a lot of the sites that are top performers have SSL along with Security Badges or BuySafe Bond logos

I think bad or expired credentials will negatively impact your rankings. Not all sites require encryption so it would be an unfair thing to give a positive bonus for.

Badges are for shoppers... I doubt google puts any stock in them.

 

[Deleted member 107938]

1. Four Pillars/5 Factors Analysis of the Niche
2. Content Creation and Tuning
3. Link Building

In that order.

I'm glad that there are a few people on BHW with these priorities. It seems like a lot of people focus only on onpage and offsite SEO and forget about making conversions and getting natural links (or non-article and blog comment links). There are too many threads about "methods" dying and being banned from networks, and not enough threads about practices that lead to longstanding, consistent money making sites in competitive areas like ecommerce.

For that matter, some of the biggest black hat money making sites/applications out there would not have brought in a dollar without good design, content, and testing.

 

[ipopbb]

I wish I could share the latest version... It violates the 9000 character limit per post so it wont let me. I suppose I could break it up into two posts or start providing links to reports on my website. It feels awkward because I plan to ultimately release these tools as paid services and I don't want to violate BST policies. Especially since this community has been so good to me.

Perhaps the example over two posts is fine... It really is educational in my opinion and it shows others what I am doing and largely how I am doing it. I also want to stay away from taking people offsite. If BHW were my forum I would be a little bit concerned about those posts too.

Is there a way to up the post size limit or to get more attachment space. Pretty soon I'll have to start damaging older highly valuable posts to contribute fresh data.

It would be cool if there was a metrics area like the upload section for templates and tools but it was reserved space for reports and metrics people create or pull from the web. If it had categories like Keyword Analysis, Demographics and Marketshare, Competitive Analysis, Web Analytics, etc...

Then of course some kind of light box viewer so you could reference the data in other section posts...

Probably more effort than its worth. Large post size and more attachment space would also work.

I'm glad that there are a few people on BHW with these priorities. It seems like a lot of people focus only on onpage and offsite SEO and forget about making conversions and getting natural links (or non-article and blog comment links). There are too many threads about "methods" dying and being banned from networks, and not enough threads about practices that lead to longstanding, consistent money making sites in competitive areas like ecommerce.

For that matter, some of the biggest black hat money making sites/applications out there would not have brought in a dollar without good design, content, and testing.

 

[TheTRUTH]

I wish I could share the latest version... It violates the 9000 character limit per post so it wont let me. I suppose I could break it up into two posts or start providing links to reports on my website. It feels awkward because I plan to ultimately release these tools as paid services and I don't want to violate BST policies. Especially since this community has been so good to me.

Perhaps the example over two posts is fine... It really is educational in my opinion and it shows others what I am doing and largely how I am doing it. I also want to stay away from taking people offsite. If BHW were my forum I would be a little bit concerned about those posts too.

Is there a way to up the post size limit or to get more attachment space. Pretty soon I'll have to start damaging older highly valuable posts to contribute fresh data.

It would be cool if there was a metrics area like the upload section for templates and tools but it was reserved space for reports and metrics people create or pull from the web. If it had categories like Keyword Analysis, Demographics and Marketshare, Competitive Analysis, Web Analytics, etc...

Then of course some kind of light box viewer so you could reference the data in other section posts...

Probably more effort than its worth. Large post size and more attachment space would also work.

Can't wait till part 2!!!

 

[target]

Eager to see it!

 

[thegamekreacher]

Great thread as always ipopbb i was doing these tests myself and bumped into your thread. Why reinvent the wheel again?

 

[MakeLemonade]

It would be cool if there was a metrics area like the upload section for templates and tools but it was reserved space for reports and metrics people create or pull from the web. If it had categories like Keyword Analysis, Demographics and Marketshare, Competitive Analysis, Web Analytics, etc...

Then of course some kind of light box viewer so you could reference the data in other section posts...

Probably more effort than its worth. Large post size and more attachment space would also work.

What I think would be very cool is to have a plugin or php include where you enter the keywords, and it looks up/tracks statistics for those keywords. Then it uploads the data (MINUS THE KEYWORDS) to some central db for analysis. Anyone could participate and benefit, and number crunching could run full time to analyze factors. We could have a BHW @ Home ( Like SETI @ Home) app running to analyze all this stuff.