82 replies to this topic

[randfish]

The biggest pervasive myth, IMO - Keyword Density is used by the Search Engines for rankings.

[Jill]

Rand! Did I just read that right?

I would think with all your algo figuring out stuff that surely you'd find a little keyword density variable in there somewhere, no?

[randfish]

Jill - Keyword density is only used for spam detection - it's an easy way to find pages that may be using "stuffing". Other than that, kw density is just a myth from SEO communities. As far as I can tell, since long before the Internet was the corpus of choice for IR researchers, term weight and variations of it were the weighting system of choice.

See:

http://www.miislita....timization.html

http://forums.seocha...m/t28007/s.html

http://forums.seocha...m/t41483/s.html

http://www.seomoz.or...tail.php?ID=268

http://forums.search...hread.php?t=489

When a search engine analyzes the text on the page, they conduct:

1. Linearization - where all the terms on the page are combined into a set of pure words
2. Tokenization - where formatting and spacing is removed
3. Filtration - where stopwords are removed
4. Stemming - where terms are reduced to their base derivatives so that term vector mapping is made easier (i.e. computer, computing and computation would all become "comput")

After that's done, they might do term counts and then use these in combination with normalization formulas (to account for documents of different lengths). SEs also use weighting, so that headlines, subheadlines, and the first paragraph or section of a document receives greater weight than subsequent sections.

In addition, search engines have long used term vectors, or the relationship between words and phrases to conduct topic analysis and document focus. The metric we use as keyword density is almost completely useless.

I am working on building something that will measure kw terms in the same manner as the search engines. I've actually contracted some friends who work in natural language processing and am supposed to meet them tomorrow night!

[copywriter]

It will be interesting to see what you come up with, Rand. Keep me posted, OK? As a copywriter, those types of things are always of interest.

[randfish]

Karon - My pleasure. This is a big pet project for me. I've been trying to destroy the notion of kw density as a measurement for a good while, and would love any help I can get!

[lyn]

Sounds like an outstanding project, Rand.
Looking forward to news about its progress!.

L.

[lyn]

Thanks for that info BB.  Not sure how it fits into this thread though?

I think/hope that this would fit into the "myths" category!
Being #1 in the SERPs isn't necessarily a sign of good SEO.

L.

[Jill]

good SEO.

I think it would depend on your definition of "good SEO"!

[OldWelshGuy]

1) Buying Addwords will make your site drop in the organic listings

2) Buying adwords will make your site climb in the organic listings

I know I am being pedantic, but I am always speaking to people who swear the above are true. Not the same people obviously

3) Automated optimisation software can get you ranking for competitive terms.

4) Content is king

5) Links are king

We all know that there is no king in SEO, there is just an army of little factors that all combine to earn you money. We also all know that conversions are king

[Jill]

I don't remember if we already have this Myth:

The search engines can't index dynamically generated sites.

[copywriter]

The search engines can't index dynamically generated sites.

Didn't that used to be a truth?

[Jill]

Um...like 10 years ago perhaps.

See this thread that we have going on right now
Dynamic Website Solutions

[Big Bill]

No fair, Scottie's left none for the rest of us!

Yes she has; spam will get your site banned.

BB

[lyn]

I think it would depend on your definition of "good SEO"!

Not really.
Bill's "myth" says that ranking #1 means the you've done the best SEO.
Obviously, your SEO effort could be good, bad, indifferent or non-existent and still get you a #1 ranking!

L.

[Big Bill]

The key word in many of these myths though, is 'ALWAYS' and that sort of thing.

So, although I agree with Karon on that myth, by saying "always" it's actually true, because you don't have to 'always' do anything when it comes to SEO.

If you're going to have a key word where seo is concerned, it has to be "depends" because everything in seo is dependent upon other factors.

BB