What Is Keyword Stuffing?

Keyword stuffing is the practice of inserting a large number of keywords into Web page content and meta tags in the attempt to artificially increase the page's ranking in search results and drive more traffic to the site. A keyword is a significantterm that is relevant to the content in question.

Keyword stuffing is considered an unethical SEO (search engine optimization) technique at best and an attack technique at worst. The practice is often used to drive traffic to fraudulent or malicious websites.

Keyword stuffing in content is known as spamdexing. Hiding keyword stuffing from the sight of webpage visitors can be accomplished in a couple of ways if keyword stuffing is used. While it no longer works, webpages still attempt to hide keywords in different ways. These ways included:

• Coloring text the same as the background color
• Positioning text far away from the center of the webpage
• Putting text behind a picture so that it cannot be seen

According to Google, keyword stuffing is not only unethical - it's also ineffective. Meta tags are no longer used to rank websites, so keywords placed in that field are ignored. Increasingly sophisticated algorithms help Google identify not just when terms are irrelevant but also when they are out of context or overused. Furthermore, if hidden text is detected in content, Google may remove a site from its index so that it doesn't appear in search results at all.

Google offers some advice: "Filling pages with keywords results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site's ranking. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context."