Google Webmaster Tools Is Showing Weird Keywords?

[SeanyG]

Hi guys,

I am learning more about SEO and yesterday I was looking at the Keyword density of my site in the Google webmaster tools.

My blog is on making money online and online business advice.

The first two words make sense:

business
money

The next few don't make sense:

flickr
freedom
startup
startupfreedom
photo
video
blog
facebook
post
cite

Then Marketing is the last keyword after all of these random keywords. Not good!

These are NOT words that I use in my content very often if at all.

Some of these words are on my right menu: flickr, startup, freedom, startupfreedom (the name of the blog). I don't know where the rest are coming from!

I would be very grateful if someone could bring some clarity to where these words are coming from and how I can stop Google from indexing them on my site.

Thanks for your time and your advice!

~Sean

[SeanyG]

Any advice? I can't find anything on Google about this!

[Irnes Jakupovic]

Not to worry Sean. I have had the same type of weird/random keywords come up on my google webmasters account. I feel it has something to do with how they crawled your content but honestly you will notice over half those weird keywords disappear when google webmasters does their update.

[leon_di]

Try go to the labs section and click on fetch as google.

If these words are part of your menu then they will appear on every page, thus making increasing the number of times google finds it.

[Jacob Martus]

Originally Posted by SeanyG

Hi guys,

I am learning more about SEO and yesterday I was looking at the Keyword density of my site in the Google webmaster tools.

My blog is on making money online and online business advice.

The first two words make sense:

business
money

The next few don't make sense:

flickr
freedom
startup
startupfreedom
photo
video
blog
facebook
post
cite

Then Marketing is the last keyword after all of these random keywords. Not good!

These are NOT words that I use in my content very often if at all.

Some of these words are on my right menu: flickr, startup, freedom, startupfreedom (the name of the blog). I don't know where the rest are coming from!

I would be very grateful if someone could bring some clarity to where these words are coming from and how I can stop Google from indexing them on my site.

Thanks for your time and your advice!

~Sean

Well if those words appear in your right menu then they are sitewide links so they appear on every page of your blog. That would definitely cause what you are seeing. I don't think it's much to fret about. If you're site is performing well, why worry about your keyword density?

[ButterflyGarden]

Check to see if your site may have been hacked. I have seen modifications to Htaccess files, that redirect search engines to another site, but other visitors typing the URLs see the website as normal.

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

Well if those words appear in your right menu then they are sitewide links so they appear on every page of your blog. That would definitely cause what you are seeing. I don't think it's much to fret about. If you're site is performing well, why worry about your keyword density?

I have seen this on sites with a really big navigation menu with lots of links.

It's common and nothing to worry about. Funny thing is, people think they
can force google to think their page is about keyword A or keyword B.
They can't. I chuckle when I read threads from people talking about choosing
keywords and other stuff like that. You can't choose keywords. Oh you
can, but google may think otherwise. I have said many times that checking
your site in SERPs for keywords ends up being a complete waste of time
in many cases. You don't know what weird searches people are doing to
get to your page. You would be amazed.

This problem is similar to the nonsense gotten from worries about keyword
density. There supposedly is some magic formula. So you mention your
chosen keyword the right number of times and think you're set. Funny,
because you have probably used some other "keyword" a little more
without knowing it.

You can't force google to show your site for anything. They can't be
forced. Many times google will change the search and steer people to
sites they think you really want. They will list your site in searches
that you think are unrelated, but google feels they fit best.

Just yesterday I was doing a search, but I can't remember what it is was
for. Google was not even showing sites with one of the words, but was
completely changing it.

Your best bet is to find out what words people search for to get to your
site and try and exploit that.

Sometimes google is just not going to bite. You really need to tweak the
titles of each page.

Don't get hung up on keywords for the index page. It's your sub pages
that should be ranking well for keywords. Your index page really is a
catch-all landing page. Make sure your anchor text for each page is
perfect. I know this is different than most people SEO for. But think
about it. Your index page is probably full of a hodge-podge of links
and content.

And one more thing. Just because google or anything else thinks it's
a "keyword," does not mean people will be searching for that and find
your page. Some "keywords" are complete nonsense.

Paul

[SeanyG]

Awesome advice. Thanks guys!

There is no way to remove these keywords from my being crawled by Google?

[Peter Gregory]

Originally Posted by ButterflyGarden

Check to see if your site may have been hacked. I have seen modifications to Htaccess files, that redirect search engines to another site, but other visitors typing the URLs see the website as normal.

I doubt this is the cause because if it were hacked you would likely be seeing keywords like viagra, cialis, male enhancement, etc, but it would be wise to check none-the-less using the fetch as googlebot feature.

It is most likely attributed to your navigation menu being sitewide. No matter what I wouldn't worry about it too much (once you can definitely rule out the possible hacked issue) as this is not going to effect your site performance. Make sure to stick to the basics of solid SEO and you'll be fine.

[sierraskatherine]

Good ideas. I want to have a try.