When checking keyword density, would it shock you to know results from using different analyzer's can differ by over 150%. I used 5 analyzer's and rarely got close to same keyword count or word count with any of them.If you're using an analyzer to optimize web pages for keyword density and you should, it's important to measure keyword density to see if right figure's achieved. When using a keyword density analyzer how do you know if analyzer's giving right density & what's right density anyway ?
I set about trying 5 analyzer's on 5 different pages ranked from position 1 to 30 on Google.com. I wanted to see how important keyword density was to ranking order and find right figure.
If you don't know what keyword density is, it's number of keyword's divided by word count on page expressed as a percentage. So, 20 keyword's on a page with a total word count of 500 should be 20/500 or a keyword density of 4%. As we'll see, it's not quite so simple.
A keyword density of between 2% to 20% for a page is often quoted as a target figure. Personally I think at 20% you would be regarded by search engine as spamming (to much repetition) for which you could find your site penalised. It would also not make very interesting reading.
It might seem obvious to say, but there are only two ways to get higher keyword density. One is more frequent use of keyword or phrase, other is having fewer words.
It's only when using an analyzer to look at keyword density, you start to realise how difficult & time consuming it can be to reach keyword density figures of 4 to 5% never mind anything higher. Reducing words on a page often seems like easier answer to improving density.
Some optimizer's believe that some search engines look at word count as well as density. It then adds a weighting factor against a page with a low count, compared to say another page with same density but a higher word count.
But is it true, or a theory and what's an acceptable word count ?
A well known and respected analyzer that many optimizer's use, for Google.com recommended a total word count of 505 to 795 with 436 to 629 words in body text.
I carried out an experiment on Google.com running a query on exact phrase "keyword density" and then used a keyword density analyzer to determine density & word count for chosen pages in Google rankings.
Each page was stored to hard drive to ensure software was analyzing same page each time. For exact phrase "keyword density" there were 55,100 other competing pages on Google.
Keyword Density on total page
The table this section refers to is at: Table 1
In keyword density column 1st figure is for "keyword" and in brackets for "density". Only position 30 complies with analyzers recommended total word count!
From keyword density analyzer results it's clear No.1 position is not being significantly penalised for only having a word count of 161 and neither is No.10 with 102 words when compared to others.
Interestingly No.10 & 19 positions have almost identical keyword density, still with low word count, but one with lower count gets higher ranking.
We know keyword density is not only factor to determine page rank. What about keywords in Meta Tags and link text and main body content ?
For Google keyword and description Meta Tags are supposed to be ignored. However a recent report by Jon Ricerca of www.searchenginegeek.com entitled "Does Keywords Metatag Affect SE Ranking?" would seem to suggest that might not be true.
In first part of this article, Meta Tag's don't seem to matter since No.1 posn does not have them!
Next, a keyword in visible link text and 2nd in actual link URL to a page, href part.
From Keyword Density Analyzer, Posn 1 has keyword's in link text, but so do No's 19 & 30. No's 4 & 10 don't have keyword's in link text.
Posn 1 also has a keyword in link, but again so do No's 19 & 30 and both 4 & 10 don't.
Also on positions 10 & 19, No.10 beats 19 even though it has no keywords in link text or link.
So far, No.10 beats No.19 even though they have almost same keyword density. No 10 has a lower word count and no keywords in either link text or link compared to No 19 which has both. So what's missing factor/s that explain why No 19 has a lower ranking than No 10 when by optimizer rules it should be other way around.
It's nothing to do with keywords in title either, because they all have those.
What about keywords in Alt tags, no its' not that either, only one that has those is No.4.
I do hope your following this so far !
Perhaps it's due to keywords in body content, but No.19 has more than No.10, so it's not that. Let's not forget No.4 it has a lower keyword density than 10 or 19 but still manages to beat them both.