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Overoptimization Penalty  


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SEO Superstitions: Overoptimization Penalty

Claim: Legitimate Overoptimization is penalized

Status: Not Supported

The claim is that "overoptimization," even if it is not intended as spamming, is penalized as "Black Hat SEO" or Gray Hat practices. This claim is very widespread.

It is probably really possible to get your site penalized for overoptimization. It is probable that this would be done only by human editors or if it is done by an algorithm, it would be done only in the most extreme cases. Many claim for example, that you should not use the same keyword in more than one graphics tag. One SEO firm tells us NOT to use the site keyword in the anchor text of all the links back to your main page and insists that you should use the word "home." That is a very very dubious assertion. If you are the Prudential Insurance Company, then surely Google or Yahoo is not going to penalize you for using the keyword "insurance" in links to your site!

As a general rule, deduced from examining top 10 pages retrieved for different keywords, you should strive to have the keyword in these proportions

The highest possible concentration in the domain name and or file name or subdirectory name.

The highest possible concentration (100%) of the <TITLE> tag and the main page title that people see.

100% of the <H1> tagged header if present, and lower proportions successively in <H2>, <H3> etc.

About 5 - 10% of the description tag - do not repeat the keyword more than one time.

At least once in the Keywords tag - it can be repeated in different phrases: EG Widgets, history of widget making, widgets in China etc.

About 1-5% of the text, but not more. It is hard to see how you could make readable, normal looking text that had 10% or 20% of the same keyword anyhow, but it might look OK to a search engine. If a human examines the text, and it says "Overoptimization is bad" "Don't do SEO overoptimization," "Avoid overoptimization," ... in every sentence, they are going to draw obvious conclusions about your attempt at "search engine optimization."

In most or all graphics alt tags, but not as 100% of the text in all of them.

In at least some of the title tags of internal and external links.

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All materials are copyright 2008 by Ami Isseroff. All rights reserved. These pages may not be reproduced in any form in electronic or printed media without express written permission from the author.

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Overoptimization Penalty