yobananaboy19
Newbie
- Jun 12, 2022
- 13
- 3
Tried to SEO everything too hard (exact match titles, spammy structure). site looked unnatural and never really gained stable rankings.
Over optimized pages killed trust
- Thread starter yobananaboy19
- Start date
- Oct 28, 2020
- 11,663
- 14,635
what's this?
- Nov 2, 2008
- 59,076
- 26,605
so putting in to much effort leads to getting penalized ?
FatBlackCat
Registered Member
- Jan 4, 2025
- 90
- 36
just let claude do it next time and stay out of his way 
JaxonWP
BANNED
- Jun 9, 2026
- 59
- 18
nah its not about putting in too much effort, it is just about leaving a footprint. exact match everything and rigid structures just scream "i am trying to game the system" to the algorithm. claude can help with the writing flow but if you just let it run wild you get a different kind of footprint. best way now is to write naturally and maybe sprinkle the main keyword in the title and h1, then let LSI do the rest of the work. overthinking it is what kills most sites these days... keep it simple and make it look like a real business built it, not an seo specialist.
ReddeBiscut
Newbie
- Dec 27, 2023
- 15
- 4
yeah i did the same mistake tbh. tried to force exact keywords everywhere and it just made everything weird + didn’t rank properly. keeping it more natural works way better imo
- Aug 11, 2024
- 89
- 26
I've been through something similar. I focused heavily on exact match titles, keyword rich headings, and trying to optimize every little detail. The problem was that the site ended up looking like it was built for search engines rather than users. It ranked for a while but never held positions consistently. Looking back, a more natural structure and better content would have probably done more than all the extra SEO tweaks.
- Jun 9, 2020
- 6,574
- 3,265
Then under optimize it simply. No need to add keyword everywhere. Just enough variation to make sense when someone reads your content.
sandrojunivaldo
Newbie
- Feb 14, 2022
- 15
- 1
Made this mistake too but it's true over optimizing everything just made the site look forced.
The WP Nerd
Regular Member
- Jun 7, 2026
- 206
- 63
it is not really about the effort @proxygo, more like leaving a massive footprint. Google is pretty good at spotting patterns now. I had a site last year where I spent weeks tweaking every single H2 and keyword density and it barely cracked page 3. Then built a quick hobby site, barely did any SEO besides basic title tags, and it started ranking in like two weeks. Sometimes you just gotta let the content breathe. If you want to fix the current site @yobananaboy19, just go back and rewrite the worst offending pages to sound like a normal person wrote them, usually works to get them out of whatever filter you hit.
ProfitStreamX
BANNED
- Apr 22, 2026
- 35
- 18
I also tried exact match SEO, but it feels like google do not trust the site much. more natural content works better later.
- May 27, 2016
- 11,045
- 2,512
You do know you can underoptimize it as well right?
- Apr 3, 2009
- 563
- 298
@Nikolaos yeah, both ends are real. Everyone in here is only looking at the page though.
The same thing happens in the link profile and it is less obvious. Stack your money keyword across the anchors and it reads like the guy with the keyword in every H2. Nothing gets penalised. The links just stop counting, quietly, so there is no warning and nothing to appeal.
Go look at a site that has never bought a link. Most of the anchors are the brand, the bare URL, or "this article". Exact match is a rounding error. That is the ratio you are trying to fake and almost nobody fakes it low enough.
The same thing happens in the link profile and it is less obvious. Stack your money keyword across the anchors and it reads like the guy with the keyword in every H2. Nothing gets penalised. The links just stop counting, quietly, so there is no warning and nothing to appeal.
Go look at a site that has never bought a link. Most of the anchors are the brand, the bare URL, or "this article". Exact match is a rounding error. That is the ratio you are trying to fake and almost nobody fakes it low enough.