9 replies to this topic

[SEMMatt]

Hello,

How much is too much when it comes to putting keywords into my CSS Classes and IDs when optimizing my site? Obviously my concern is that we'd be considered spamming...

Thanks,
SEMMatt

[Randy]

It's been awhile since I checked classes and ids specifically Matt, but as a general rule the engines don't even index html markup as being part of the content of a page. It's a fairly easy one to test if you want to. Simply create a page with a made up word as your css classes and/or ids, let the page get indexed and then search for the made up word phrase to see if the page is retrieved or not.

[SEMMatt]

It's been awhile since I checked classes and ids specifically Matt, but as a general rule the engines don't even index html markup as being part of the content of a page. It's a fairly easy one to test if you want to. Simply create a page with a made up word as your css classes and/or ids, let the page get indexed and then search for the made up word phrase to see if the page is retrieved or not.

Randy, do you mean to say that search engines aren't indexing index.html pages or CSS style sheets? How could it be that they aren't indexing the home page? That has not been my experience.

Thanks,
Matt

[Randy]

I mean they're not indexing every little bit of html markup in a way that gets it included as a ranking factor Matt. Much as Google does not care what you put in the meta keywords tag, because even though it appears in the page it's markup they have chosen to ignore.

[Jill]

IMO, putting keywords in classes, etc. could only hurt and would not help. Since it's ignored by search engines, likely it wouldn't do anything, but anytime you stuff extra keywords anywhere in the code you're opening yourself up for extra scrutiny. If a real person reviewed your code and saw keywords in classes where they typically don't belong, they might take it as keyword stuffing.

[Michael Martinez]

The search engines say they analyze CSS documents to determine if people are trying to do sneaky things. I haven't heard of anyone getting into trouble for trying to stuff keywords into HTML markup in maybe 8 years, but it's certainly not helpful in today's search environment.

If you feel your pages need more repetition of keywords or more keywords you should add more human-sensible, search-indexable, visible copy to the pages (or create more pages for indexing).

[NASA]

creating ID's and Classes using KWD's sounds rather spammy to me, not to mention a waste of time.

But do let us know if it works, i'll try anything the once

[hitweb]

I very much agree with Jill on, if a real person looks at your code, it can be bad. I'm a big advocate of clean code. If it doesn't make sense to use a class or id word for the thing it is targeting, then don't use it. If you sell bathroom supplies and you use the word "plunger" as the class for your footer navigation, it's just as bad as using "div22" as the class or id. It just doesn't make sense to do it. And is frustrating to work with code like that.

[Scottie]

Rankings and analysis are made on visible copy, not markup.

Really, do [header] and [footer] contribute anything to the meaning of the page? Nope. Stuffing keywords in your css is just a waste of time and more likely to get you in trouble with a human reviewer without giving you any benefits otherwise.

It has about the same value as stuffing keywords in comment tags. They just don't count in the page analysis.

[kieronhughes]

Absolutely pointless to consider putting any keywords in your CSS file, or on classes/IDs in your HTML code.

Keep your code clean and use relevant classes that will help you build (or change) your code should you need to. Although building a website with search engines in mind is a good thing, people can become a little too obsessed.

Don't worry about placement of keywords here and there, just build your website so it works well, functions the same in all browsers and contains no underhand techniques.

Edit - I should really look at topic dates before replying...