Adding Extra Content Just For Seo: Good Idea? Options

[mjkane]

What's the general consensus on padding your site pages with paragraphs of extra test just for Google or for better page rank? Does it work? I've always believed that web sites should be designed for humans and if done well, the search engines will find it. What's the prevailing wisdom on this?

[Randy]

Search engine spiders don't carry credit cards so can't buy anything. Nor do they have little fingers to type valid information into contact forms. Nor are their brains big enough to assimilate a lot of information about a given subject.

Write for real people. And just make sure you're not putting any technical barriers in the way of the spiders so they can point more real people toward your site.

[Jill]

Search engines want to show the best sites to THEIR users -- the searchers.

So "padding" words on the page that don't actually make it better for users most likely won't make it better for searchers either.

Moving this to the content forum.

[Livetech]

There should be some distinction here:-

- Creating a page with the whole intention of taking the load off your home page and improving usibility: Good - Say if I had a football boots website, and I found out that I had 100 searches/day for "Nike Football Boots". I'd create a page entitled that, probably with it in the URL, and with content that included the phrase a few times. I'd list all the nike football boots I sold, and explain a bit about them, their history, and how to look after them. Basically, being useful for the (potential) customer. I'd hope that the SE's would rank that page above my home page, as it was more valuable for people interested in Nike football boots than, say a page about just general football boots.
- Padding a page with more content to rank in different keywords & to improve rank: Possibly Bad - It depends on how it's done, if it's spammy hidden text, or text that anybody with half fluency in the target language can't understand, then it'd probably end up damaging the conversion rate.

[Jill]

I think the history of football boots would fit in the "padding category."

[1dmf]

I think the history of football boots would fit in the "padding category."

hmmm, why is this so.

It's like saying a site that is about the history of football boots isn't allowed to sell football boots and sites that sell football boots aren't allowed to give their visitors any historical background?

If this analogy is off the mark, I apologise profusely and politely request an explaination of what you mean by that statement.

Surely if you wish to create additional content on your site that is not kwd spammy, reads in correct, flowing grammar, that neither hinders a visitor just wishing to make a purchase and nothing else, yets offers additional, related information, maybe just for curiosity sake or merley because the site owner has a passion or interest in the subject.

What is wrong with this? how is it just superfluos 'padding', surely one of the whole points of 'web content' is it is down to individual perception. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and just because one person finds a web page of no use or just eye candy / padding, another might find the information very insightfull.

I'm for ever seing you draw these invisible lines / barriers, of which I just cannot see!

When and where is the line drawn, what makes content, content or simply just useless padding?

[Randy]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/hysterical.gif)

I'm pretty sure Jill's response was a bit tongue in cheek 1dmf. And I suspect you missed the reference because of that bad old English switcharoo that happens somewhere out in the Atlantic, where the meaning of football changes considerably. To the west of the line in the water football players actually wear pads. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/giggle.gif)

[1dmf]

So explain to me Randy, why do you call it football , when most of the time you carry / throw the ball?

You even call it a 'Touchdown' , which implies you have 'placed' the ball somewhere with your 'hands', where is the foot in all this???

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/goalie.gif)

[Randy]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/lmao.gif)

You've got me 1dmf!

It makes no more sense then why baseball is called baseball, considering the bases aren't remotely shaped like balls. Or how soccer got the name soccer.

I have a feeling alcoholic beverages were probably involved in all of these somehow... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink1.gif)

[Livetech]

So explain to me Randy, why do you call it football , when most of the time you carry / throw the ball?

You even call it a 'Touchdown' , which implies you have 'placed' the ball somewhere with your 'hands', where is the foot in all this???

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/goalie.gif)

And I was taught in school that balls were spherical! So, football should be the game you play with your feet, and you kick a ball. Your version should be "carry ovaly thingy" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink1.gif)

[Livetech]

Or how soccer got the name soccer.

I know this!

Soccer comes from the word "Association Football". In the early days, the game we call "Rugby Union" was known as "Rugby Football", and was shortened to "Rugger". Somebody shortened "Association Football" to Soccer.

[Jill]

It's like saying a site that is about the history of football boots isn't allowed to sell football boots and sites that sell football boots aren't allowed to give their visitors any historical background?

My comment wasn't tongue in cheek actually.

If people are really interested in that info, then have at it. But, most who are buying stuff like that are absolutely NOT interested in it, and I for one am sick of seeing it added to pages JUST for search engines.

It's awful what (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_images/poo.gif) gets on pages just so they can say football boots a zillion times on the page. That's not what SEO, or copy, or websites are all about.

Stop thinking about padding and start thinking about providing actual real true value (to people not search engines).

[torka]

Offtopic

Your version should be "carry ovaly thingy" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink1.gif)

Yes, but just try saying that after you've consumed a six-pack or two of beer. Nope, we needed a name that was easier to pronounce when plastered. "Football" (or "foobaw", as one might say after the aforementioned beer consumption) is nearly ideal in that regard.

BTW, back when I was a kid, a radio announcer in my hometown of Columbia, SC had an interesting theory on the origins of "soccer" -- both the game and the word itself.

It involved the "Ancient Irmese" (a fictional race of people who supposedly inhabited the area around the small town of Irmo, SC, just outside Columbia)... their annual harvest of lima beans and corn... and a game they played in the corn and lima bean fields after the harvest, involving kicking heads of cabbage into bushel baskets -- a game which they initially named "succotash" (in honor of the dish made from limas and corn, a popular side item in Southern USA cuisine).

But then those icky European types stole the game from the Ancient Irmese and shortened the name to "soccer" to cover their tracks. This wasn't the first time something like that happened, though -- according to this announcer, the hapless Ancient Irmese were apparently responsible for almost every invention ever known, but remarkably unlucky in having all their best ideas misappropriated by others... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/giggle.gif)

--Torka (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mf_prop.gif)

[1dmf]

lol - I thought as much Jill, So if you then wanted to start doing a more informative site or delve into the history etc..

Do you suggest using a sub domain or a total new domain / website?

Offtopic

I think you are all confused, the 'Beautiful Game' is not called Soccer , it's called Football , because you aren't allowed to use your 'Hand' only your 'Foot' unless you are the goalie!

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/goalie.gif)

[Ron Carnell]

Uh, if you wanted to get technical, I think you'd have to call it foot-knee-elbow-top-of-head-ball? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)