Is bold text perceived as spam by search engines?

toivo · 10-22-2009, 08:58 AM

Does bold text cause potential problems with a web site when the spider-bots comes to visit? My site (DansCartoons.com) has a bold font in some of the descriptive text and wonder if this would be a problem? I.e., the domain is already 6 years old and has a #5 PR with many of the sub-pages ranking #1 in the SERPS for intended keyword searches.
Btw, should I move all those text hyperlinks to a new page so the index page:
#1. Doesn't appear so cluttered
#2. Less outgoing link is better....right?

Bex7175 · 10-22-2009, 09:07 AM

I believe that using bold text, either with the <strong> or the <b> tags certainly won't harm your pagerank (unless it's ridiculously overused) and can actually help it. I think that search engines such as Google would penalise you only if you were obviously using bold text to highlight particular keywords that occurred a ridiculous amount of times.

As for the hyperlinks, are you talking about the ones at the bottom of the page for the different categories? I think they could potentially be neatened up so as to appear less cluttered but actually having them on the main page is probably a good idea as people are likely to want to click straight to their area of interest rather than having to click into a categories section and then into their category of choice.

If you are worried about it looking cluttered you could pick say ten of your most popular categories, list them and then have a 'click to view more categories' link where the rest of them are contained - that might help things to look a bit neater.

I hope that helps,
Bex

toivo · 10-22-2009, 09:13 AM

Great feedback BEX. Well, those 3 columns of text links underneath the daily image are the ones I'm referring to. That main page is PR5 like I say (and no, I don't hold PR as the gospel) but since it is at that PR and all those links are on an index page that keeps the "juice" working for them. maybe (or maybe not?) I won't be overly concerned. As for the bold text aspect, I see what you mean. Basically, the main keywords were never emphasized in the manner you describe, so probably won't overly concern myself with it. Somewhat of a sigh of relief. Thanks got going to the actual time & trouble of typing in the DansCartoons.com URL. Muchas gracias! Any other constructive critiques....bring it on

Richard Whyte · 10-22-2009, 11:40 AM

toivo

Bold text does not hurt you as long as it is used smart... You don't want to bold the entire page, but points that you want to catch attention.... Googlebots read these words and give them a little more importance, so use bold on words you want to search engines AND your visitors to pay more attention to.

The links at the bottom of the page should not be hurting your PR. Most are to other pages on your domain... some leave the site, but the majority are your domain, so no worries.

Two things I would like to mention.

1) I am not a big fan of sites that the content area and the space on the sides blend together... You are suing the same background colors, so on a wide monitor, it just all blends together. I much prefer to see these two areas have contrasting color....

2) The cartoon at the very bottom of the page does no align with the rest of the content... It just looks wrong to me that everything is centered on your site until you get to that and it is over to the left. I think you need to check your code and see if this is outside of your general centering system.

3) You have some errors in your page code.... If you look inside, you will notice that you are using a </body> very near the top of your code and don't have one down at the bottom.... Some browsers are OK with this while others will no accept it... Code is becoming more formalized, so you need to clean this up asap.

4) All of you site is based upon Tables.... In the design world this is old hat.... And on some devices your code will not be shown correctly. Much of this way of design web pages has been deprecated so you should update your site to use CSS for all positioning.

5) And last... Since you are a cartoon guy... I would work one into you banner at the top of the page or right below it... A cartoon about cartoons.... Cartoons have power and you have skill, use it to the best effect you can rather than that big block of text. Break up that content into manageable chucks as I found it a bit much to read all of that and the lawyer comments before we see your work... Shorten your words and use bullets to have impact.

Have a Great Day!

Richard

toivo · 10-22-2009, 12:06 PM

Rich: Yur input has been appreciated....more than taht, pricel;ess. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Built the site back in 2002 (took over a year)....gradually doing this & that....study and reading bits and pieces about HTML and how to use the actual web editor that was created with (FrontPage2002)...I know it's a WYSIWYG editor....but writing raw code was like learning nuclear science for me. You see on that site what my discipline is.....and would rather be doing that, as opposed to the tedium of web design, editing and page layout.
I already have a book on CSS (Frontpage Expression Web)....although I'd need to invest in another software, and entirely strip my entire current site and rebuild from scratch-another year by the wayside. So for now....focus on the current site itself, how to optimize it and so forth. Can you tell me about this: </body> and what I need to add in my HTML to offset that tag? And where I need to add it? I will if you tell me. By the way, does the image at the very bottom appear as centered? (DansCartoons.com) ? Let me know. I will respond when I hear back as I absorb all of your input here....as always, much appreciated!

benivolent · 10-23-2009, 06:00 AM

Search engine will not spam bold text. It will increase the attention of visitors & it will not affect your page rank too. Of course your point is true that its appearance should not be cluttered & outgoing link should not exceeds 20 nos. else it will affect your SERP.

10-22-2009, 09:07 AM	#2
Bex7175 Active Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 35 Thanks: 0 Thanked 4 Times in 4 Posts	Re: Is bold text perceived as spam by search engines? I believe that using bold text, either with the <strong> or the <b> tags certainly won't harm your pagerank (unless it's ridiculously overused) and can actually help it. I think that search engines such as Google would penalise you only if you were obviously using bold text to highlight particular keywords that occurred a ridiculous amount of times. As for the hyperlinks, are you talking about the ones at the bottom of the page for the different categories? I think they could potentially be neatened up so as to appear less cluttered but actually having them on the main page is probably a good idea as people are likely to want to click straight to their area of interest rather than having to click into a categories section and then into their category of choice. If you are worried about it looking cluttered you could pick say ten of your most popular categories, list them and then have a 'click to view more categories' link where the rest of them are contained - that might help things to look a bit neater. I hope that helps, Bex
	Looking for high-quality stock photos? ask4Photos.com is a stock photo gallery providing digital images of a very high standard. Visit ask4Photos.com and feast your eyes on our extensive collection of reasonably priced stock photos.

10-22-2009, 09:13 AM	#3
toivo Active Warrior Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 30 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Is bold text perceived as spam by search engines? Great feedback BEX. Well, those 3 columns of text links underneath the daily image are the ones I'm referring to. That main page is PR5 like I say (and no, I don't hold PR as the gospel) but since it is at that PR and all those links are on an index page that keeps the "juice" working for them. maybe (or maybe not?) I won't be overly concerned. As for the bold text aspect, I see what you mean. Basically, the main keywords were never emphasized in the manner you describe, so probably won't overly concern myself with it. Somewhat of a sigh of relief. Thanks got going to the actual time & trouble of typing in the DansCartoons.com URL. Muchas gracias! Any other constructive critiques....bring it on

10-22-2009, 11:40 AM	#4
Richard Whyte HyperActive Warrior Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 243 Thanks: 9 Thanked 29 Times in 27 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: Is bold text perceived as spam by search engines? toivo Bold text does not hurt you as long as it is used smart... You don't want to bold the entire page, but points that you want to catch attention.... Googlebots read these words and give them a little more importance, so use bold on words you want to search engines AND your visitors to pay more attention to. The links at the bottom of the page should not be hurting your PR. Most are to other pages on your domain... some leave the site, but the majority are your domain, so no worries. Two things I would like to mention. 1) I am not a big fan of sites that the content area and the space on the sides blend together... You are suing the same background colors, so on a wide monitor, it just all blends together. I much prefer to see these two areas have contrasting color.... 2) The cartoon at the very bottom of the page does no align with the rest of the content... It just looks wrong to me that everything is centered on your site until you get to that and it is over to the left. I think you need to check your code and see if this is outside of your general centering system. 3) You have some errors in your page code.... If you look inside, you will notice that you are using a </body> very near the top of your code and don't have one down at the bottom.... Some browsers are OK with this while others will no accept it... Code is becoming more formalized, so you need to clean this up asap. 4) All of you site is based upon Tables.... In the design world this is old hat.... And on some devices your code will not be shown correctly. Much of this way of design web pages has been deprecated so you should update your site to use CSS for all positioning. 5) And last... Since you are a cartoon guy... I would work one into you banner at the top of the page or right below it... A cartoon about cartoons.... Cartoons have power and you have skill, use it to the best effect you can rather than that big block of text. Break up that content into manageable chucks as I found it a bit much to read all of that and the lawyer comments before we see your work... Shorten your words and use bullets to have impact. Have a Great Day! Richard
	Richard Whyte Work-At-Home-Toolbox- Tools and Guides for IMers! Get Higher Search Engine Rankings Power Sales Page Creator

10-23-2009, 06:00 AM	#6
benivolent Warrior Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 2 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Is bold text perceived as spam by search engines? Search engine will not spam bold text. It will increase the attention of visitors & it will not affect your page rank too. Of course your point is true that its appearance should not be cluttered & outgoing link should not exceeds 20 nos. else it will affect your SERP.

10-22-2009, 08:58 AM	#1
toivo Active Warrior Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 30 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Is bold text perceived as spam by search engines? Does bold text cause potential problems with a web site when the spider-bots comes to visit? My site (DansCartoons.com) has a bold font in some of the descriptive text and wonder if this would be a problem? I.e., the domain is already 6 years old and has a #5 PR with many of the sub-pages ranking #1 in the SERPS for intended keyword searches. Btw, should I move all those text hyperlinks to a new page so the index page: #1. Doesn't appear so cluttered #2. Less outgoing link is better....right?

10-22-2009, 12:06 PM	#5
toivo Active Warrior Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 30 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Is bold text perceived as spam by search engines? Rich: Yur input has been appreciated....more than taht, pricel;ess. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Built the site back in 2002 (took over a year)....gradually doing this & that....study and reading bits and pieces about HTML and how to use the actual web editor that was created with (FrontPage2002)...I know it's a WYSIWYG editor....but writing raw code was like learning nuclear science for me. You see on that site what my discipline is.....and would rather be doing that, as opposed to the tedium of web design, editing and page layout. I already have a book on CSS (Frontpage Expression Web)....although I'd need to invest in another software, and entirely strip my entire current site and rebuild from scratch-another year by the wayside. So for now....focus on the current site itself, how to optimize it and so forth. Can you tell me about this: </body> and what I need to add in my HTML to offset that tag? And where I need to add it? I will if you tell me. By the way, does the image at the very bottom appear as centered? (DansCartoons.com) ? Let me know. I will respond when I hear back as I absorb all of your input here....as always, much appreciated!