Very often young SEO specialists, desiring to take the first place and trying to improve the relevance of their websites, make them over-optimized. As a result, reaction of search engines (SE) is not very favorable. In better case, your website will be just placed lower in the list. But if you are not so lucky, your site can be banned.
What “site over-optimization” means, and what should we do not to get a severe punishment from SE? The answers to these questions are further in this blog.
Over-optimization is an over saturation of a site with the factors that have a good impact on SE ranking.
What Is Over Optimization and How To Avoid It
Here, InternetDevels Drupal development agency enumerates the biggest mistakes of the SEO specialists that lead to over-optimization:
1. Over-optimization in meta tags
The abundance of keywords (KW) in meta tags (title and description) does not bring good impact on the site. You should remember that meta tags are created primarily for people, and only then for SE. Highly spammed meta tag makes potential buyers leave the site. This reduces behavioral factors, which in its turn affects SE ranking. Here is an example of over-optimized site selling metal doors:
As you can see, the keyword "metal doors" is repeated several times both in title and description. Here are some guidelines that will be useful for meta tags writing:
- Title length should be up to 90 characters;
- Description’s ideal length is from 140 to 200 characters;
- Page Title should represent the content of the page as accurately as possible;
- Page Title and Description should encourage people to visit the site;
- It is better to use the keyword in the beginning of page title.
2. Keywords over-optimization in text
The excessive use of keywords in text has a negative effect on your site. The given example demonstrates this kind of over-optimization:
To verify the over-optimization, let’s do semantic analysis of the text using Advego:
As you can see in the text containing 399 words, the keyword "mattress" is used 25 times, the word "orthopedic" is used 15 times, the word combination "orthopedic mattresses" is used 13 times. In this case it was even unnecessary to check the text’s semantics, everyone can see that there are too many keywords in the text.
Writing the text for the site follow these guidelines:
- Texts should be useful primarily for readers;
- The amount of keywords should not be bigger than 5%;
- Texts should be readable;
- Dilute the keywords with the additional phrases that fit within the meaning of the text.
- Arrange the high, medium, and low frequency queries properly on the page
This example demonstrates one more over-optimization example.
3. Over-optimization of keywords with the secondary tags
Excessive highlighting of keywords in bold, italic, or underlined styles also over optimizes your site. For example:
If a potential customer sees so much text in bold, it is likely that he will leave the site immediately. And even low prices comparing with other online stores won’t help to keep the user on website.
So to attract readers' attention, it is enough to use tag “strong” from 3 to 5 times only. But if you have the need to emphasize more important phrases, it is better to use CSS then.
4. Relinking over-optimization
Pages’ over optimization can be also caused by the wrong internal relinking. If SE find that there are a lot of links with keywords on one or several pages, it can apply filter to the whole site. Here is an example of the over-optimized relinking on the product page:
As can be seen from the images, relinking of goods (namely flowers) is very tight and looks not very nice not only for SE but also for the user. Because of this the pages can be pessimized.
5. Over-optimization of the direct keywords entries in anchors
When purchasing links, many SEO specialists use only direct entries of queries. This leads to such unpleasant filter as "Penguin". We strongly recommend use anchors not only with the direct keywords entries. For your site not to be filtered by “Pinguin” the anchors should be diluted by natural links such as:
- URL of the site (for example, www.уоur-sіtе);
- URL of the promoted page (www.vаsh-sауt/nоdе125);
- Natural words, such as, here, on the website, following the link etc.
The process of anchor list creation should be taken responsibly. You need to use not only high frequency queries but also keywords among with the other words.
6. Over-optimization in URL
Using a large number of keywords in URL or on pages, your site is also at risk of over-optimization. For example:
Undoubtedly, the presence of keyword in domain name or in URL of the promoted pages positively affects the relevance of a site/page. But do not use a lot of them because an excessive amount of keywords will not bring the desired result. On the contrary, it will lead to the opposite effect.
Thus, the main kinds of over-optimization that can affect SE ranking were described. In general, use only legal methods of site’s optimization, and let SERP be with you!