Questions about Keywords

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I have a question that is just driving me crazy. I did some searching on here and I can't really find this specific question, so I am going to ask here. I am pretty new at SEO and I have successfully ranked some stupid keywords that I shouldn't have ranked, but hey, here's to learning!

There is a keyword I have been shooting to rank for...so I started taking apart the top ten sites on google that come up for that keyword, and I decided, for whatever reason, to check the keyword density of the page, just for kicks.

The keyword (it's 2 words) doesn't appear on the page... it doesn't appear in the images, or the alt tags, or the title, or anywhere. the words appear separately on the page, but never together. How does google give that page the #2 spot, and it doesn't even have the exact match it in at all? Is this common?

I know keyword density is not the only thing to look at but in my mind I thought I should have KWD that is sorta right around where everyone else is (most at between 1-2% for the other 9 spots).. it's a PR2 site, but it has 0 links to that page... WOW.. what do I need to be looking at?
#search engine optimization #keywords #questions
  • Keyword density is an obsolete ranking factor. Write naturally and you'll be rewarded with rankings for more keywords and consequently more traffic. Stop aiming for any particular keyword density while writing content.
    • [1] reply
    • Ok, I have another question then. how do I target a specific keyword if google doesn't look at them? does that mean that keyword research tools, like the samurai and longtail pro are worthless?
      • [1] reply
  • Probably the site has a lot of internal and external links to that page with the keyword combination that you have checked.
  • Use Google Keyword Planner tool finding new keywords for your website. SEO expert person use these types of tool for finding keywords for website.
  • It's no mystery how some pages can rank for a specific keyword/phrase when that word appears nowhere on the page. It's called co-citation and happens when other sites (usually ones that have clout with Google) link back to that site while using those keywords. Often, the keyword is not even used in an anchor link text but near the link back to that specific page. So Google, 'reads' that text and interprets the page being linked to must be about that keyword/phrase. If enough pages linking back via co-citation repeat this process, Google might very well rank the page being linked to even though it does not contain those words.
  • Google takes into account many factors including synomyns, so while the exact keyword phrase may not appear on a particular page, the related keywords can be enough to help it rank.

    When you do a Google search for your keywords, scroll to the bottom of the search results. Do any of the related searches match what you see on the site ranking #2?
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    Questions about Keywords

    I have a question that is just driving me crazy. I did some searching on here and I can't really find this specific question, so I am going to ask here. I am pretty new at SEO and I have successfully ranked some stupid keywords that I shouldn't have ranked, but hey, here's to learning! There is a keyword I have been shooting to rank for...so I started taking apart the top ten sites on google that come up for that keyword, and I decided, for whatever reason, to check the keyword density of the page, just for kicks.