| Using an Include File for Keywords |
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Written by Andy Johnson August 14, 2006 Knowledgeable Persons, Our web master wants to build an include file with our keywords in it and then the same keywords will be on every page. Will this be considered spamming or have a negative impact on our search engine rankings or listings? Our site is crawled frequently by many spiders including Google. Thank you all for your response. Regards, Andy Johnson Greenleaf Software, Inc. Written by Brett Atkin August 15, 2006 Andy, Is your webmaster suggesting using an include file (say ASP) for the meta keyword tag. Something like:
It is possible and I've done something similar but pull the title / keywords / description from a database so that I can update the tags over the web. BUT... Why would you want the same keywords for every page? One of the ways to optimize a page is by using the keyword tag. The words in that tag should be unique to that page. OR is your webmaster suggesting just dumping keywords into the top of the page somewhere and setting the font color to the same as the background, or positioning the include at the very bottom of the page to put it out of sight of normal page viewing? In the first case, SE's would consider that spam and in the second, I'm not sure, but it is very poor design. Brett Atkin brettatkin.com Written by Chris Nielsen August 15, 2006 You're right to question this action. Depending on how this is done it may help your pages to be found. But there is a danger of an identifiable "pattern" of content that might work against you. Then there is the aspect of what people may think when they see this on every page. To me, anything except network site links and template elements that appear on every page is going to be neutral at best. If I were a search engine programmer (Which I'm not), I would create a way to analyze a site and look for things that appear on each page. Some things I would consider to be "ok", such as navigation, graphics, certain kinds of links, and small text blocks like for contact information. I would treat these as one occurance of the text on the site and not give equal "credit" to all of them. I doubt that all the keywords in the include are found in or relate to all the content on every page? If they do then I would think your content should be looked at. Why not spend the extra time to research all the scored keywords that relate to your site, and add as many as possible to the copy on pages they belong on, following good rules of English? I think the old concept of doorway pages is valid, but each page of your site should be a "doorway", with good optimized content on a specific topic. Many webmasters and some SEOs don't seem to consider that most search engines have some of the best programmers with years of experience. I feel programmers look for "normal" patterns of text and content both on the page and site-wide, and things that can be identified as different may or may not receive some kind of special consideration. Thank you, Chris Nielsen pcb-search.com Written by Mike Banks Valentine August 15, 2006 Andy, I'm assuming your webmaster wants to put those keywords in an include that provides "keyword meta tags" NOT page text for every page, because using an include to put those keywords in every page's text would be silly, would be a visually redundant, worthless to the site user and (depending on how many keywords you are targeting) probably would be considered spam to the search engines. The "keyword meta tag include" tactic is commonly implemented by webmasters and is completely useless for search engine rankings. It won't help you unless you have the same text on every page and that include uses ONLY text which appears on every page. Repeating keywords in meta tags which are not used on the page text is one reason search engines stopped giving them any weight in ranking algorithms. It is like saying to the engines, "Here are the words I want to rank for - regardless of the fact that I don't use them on my site page text, embedded links text, headlines, title tags, directory structure or image files." This is also why many sites don't rank well - because webmasters are still thinking like it is 1999 when keyword meta tags still mattered to the search engines. Things have progressed way beyond that point now and many engines ignore, or at least discount those tags. Webmasters are always reluctant to write individual PAGE title tags, individual PAGE keyword tags based on individual PAGE text and adjust individual page copy to rank well because they are not SEO's and it takes them too much time. That is why they are webmasters - they enjoy building useful and attractive web sites with automation built in to ease site management. But that is also why they are not SEO's, because you can't automate Search Engine Optimization. Mike Banks Valentine seoptimism.com Written by Ivan Jimenez August 16, 2006 Hello Andy, Using an include file to paste keywords to every page of your site is the equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. Every page of your website offers opportunities to introduce new keywords that will attract targeted traffic to your website. For instance, I am working on a project right now for a liquidator. Suppose her general keywords were 'liquidation goods', 'surplus goods' and 'closeout goods'. While those keywords would be suitable throughout her site, we'd be throwing away extraordinary chances of ranking well for keywords like 'surplus makita power tools' and 'liquidation costume jewelry' if I used the same (main page) keywords throughout the site. Andy, you'd probably be surprised by the sheer number of relevant keywords people are using to search for the type of product(s) you offer, outside of the super competitive terms like 'software', 'small business software', 'enterprise software', etc. Don't feel bad, most website owners are! For obvious reasons, you cannot optimize a page for 100 keywords without spamming and most importantly, without being useful to the actual site visitor. It's primarily for this reason that you'll want to take advantage of every page in your website to offer valuable content while making great use of your tags, source code and keyword choices. Ivan Jimenez smarterclicks.com Written by James Miller August 16, 2006 Whether it is considered spamming or not, I think it is pointless as I don't think it helps at all. The main trouble with keywords is that they promote your view of the site and what your customers should be. But how many of your customers use your products in a way it was not intended. One of my products was written for a bookmaker and I have just sold several copies to the US Army in Iraq. Often setting up the list of keywords takes a great deal of management time, as everybody argues about what should be on the list and what shouldn't. I was in one meeting which reminded me of the discussions held in the Middle Ages about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Keywords also make all of your pages appear the same to the search engines. Now if you have a variety of products, this might mean that someone looking for something you do sell, will end up on a totally unrelated page. So if you do use keywords they should be relevant to the page. For instance the Contact page on the site, should only contain the keywords "Greenleaf Software contact", if it contains any at all, as these words should be contained within the page. I have always found that the best keyword pages are case studies, where you describe how your products are used. These are obviously linked to the actual product pages, and your home page. Again do they need keywords. James Miller Daisy Analysis Comments (0)
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