Which one places better in SE? High quality article w/o keywords or low quality article w/ keywords?

[cloudchaser22]

I'm still learning this concept... I finished my work and was surfing the web. Something hit me. Often times, I will find articles with no keywords targeted rank very high on the 1st page. This is an enigma for me... aren't you supposed to put keywords in your articles? So how do they rank high?

If you only had to choose one, which one would place better on SE?

#1 - Very high quality article with no targeted keywords

#2 - Low quality article with many targeted keywords

#1 or #2?

[cloudchaser22]

Hi rock,

I know that's kinda weird. Do you know why that is though?

[JonathanBoettcher]

I think you might have to consider if there are any off-page factors; links etc. Also, in the high quality article with no keywords - were there keywords "tagged" onto the article? Check the source code and see if they're in there.

There's always a reason for it - Google doesn't *yet* take votes - although its looking like they do in some places - so they can't tell if the article is the best written thing since the constitution. Everything is algorithmic.

[cloudchaser22]

Oh I was beginning to think that Google workers, in some cases might read for high quality articles and hand select the best ones.

[KateD]

I know that you asked for either 1 or 2, but why not do both?

It isn't hard to write a high quality article that also is written around a targeted keyword phrase.

It doesn't have to be an either/or choice.

KateD

[JonathanBoettcher]

I'd agree with KateD. If you're writing or outsourcing an article, you don't choose to create a bad one and only focus on keywords, that would just be strange.

Cloudchaser22 - if Google had the time & money for what you're talking about (editors reading each article) I would be dumbfounded and amazed. There are millions of new pages being added to the internet every day, the sheer amount of labor involved would be far beyond staggering.

[Ben_Curtis]

It does take time to create a quality, original article, no way around that. I have only 45 out there at this time. But here's what motivates me: my articles are going to be out in cyberspace with my name on them (hopefully) beyond the foreseeable future, and I want to continue to be proud of where my name is, instead of cringing when some article gets referred back to me. See?

[JJOrana]

There are more than 250 factors Google are considering in ranking a page. That's why keyword density is over rated.

The article should be for humans and not for robots.

To answer the question, I'll have quality content with my keywords on it. This way, you make your readers happy and search engine happy.

Bottom line, if your reader is happy it's likely that search engine will be happy.

[Topgunb]

The great thing is search engines will rank original content regardless of keyword, terms. No keyword sometimes helps your article.

The key is it must be new / original

Brian

[cloudchaser22]

Thanks for this guys.

I thought there were only 1 factor when writing articles and getting them in SE - keywords. But now it makes sense that there are some articles with no keywords in them that still place over articles with many in them. I also didn't know that besides keywords, there were 249 other factors in how Google ranks an article. Thanks again.