What is Keyword Stuffing? Google Spam Policies Explained

Why Keyword Stuffing is Bad for SEO: Google Spam Policies Explained

Why Keyword Stuffing is Bad for SEO: Google Spam Policies Explained

Introduction

The top three search results on Google get 54.4% of all clicks. Ranking high on Google’s search engine is the top goal of any business. That’s why search engine optimization (SEO) is an important strategy that small and large businesses invest in. 

SEO is a practice that increases the chances of a webpage ranking higher on Google’s search engine results page.

Some of the positive SEO strategies businesses can use include link-building, social media, blog posts, and content marketing. However, some strategies can actually harm a website’s rankings.

Google has outlined the different policies they consider to be spam and harmful to a website’s rankings. One of the most commonly used detrimental techniques is keyword stuffing.

This article discusses the top Google Spam policies, including keyword stuffing, and how to avoid them. 

What is Keyword Stuffing?

Keyword stuffing is one of the oldest tactics for manipulating search engine algorithms. This method involves including a keyword as many times as possible throughout the copy on a website. The goal is to rank higher for that specific keyword on search engines like Google. This usually results in the text sounding unnatural and doesn’t add any value to the web page. 

The strategy was successful back in the early 2000s when search engines relied on the frequency of the keywords to determine how to rank a site. However, as search engines became more advanced, updates to the algorithm made keyword stuffing harmful to a site’s ranking. 

Avoid over-saturating your text with a specific keyword. Usually, if your text sounds natural and you aren’t intentionally inputting keywords where they don’t need to be, you shouldn’t be negatively affected by this spam technique.

However, you can check the density of your keyword in your text to make sure you aren’t keyword stuffing. Simply insert your text into an online keyword density checker l