On Page SEO: Keyword Density Experiment.

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For those interested, I've been doing some experiments with keyword density to try to nail down exactly what the best density is.

I created two near identical sites with a long nonsense word in the URL, title, headers and content. I created the sites within 20 minutes of each other. The only difference was one site was worded to have a target keyword density of 1.95% in 359 words and the other was worded to have 4.86% density in 370 words.

Once both sites were indexed - which site won?

The 4.86% site. This is interesting because many SEO folk aim for 2 - 2.5% believing more to be considered spammy.

The question is how far does it go?

My next experiment is a site added to the same target keyword with a 6.93% density in 332 words.

The question it doesn't answer is another hypothesis I have - which is mentions increase relevance, but excessively heavy density flags as spammy. To test that I am going to word another site with the same target keyword that has a low density - 2 - 2.5% but has significantly more mentions than any of these other sites.

Hope you find this interesting/useful. Of course relevant high PR backlinks are critical - for this reason I have done NO promotion on these sites and won't release the address of them or the target keyword - it could skew the results.

I'll be reporting back with the results of the further experiments as soon as the new pages are indexed.
#density #experiment #keyword #page #seo
  • Profile picture of the author dburk
    Hi smokemare,

    While I applaud your desire to experiment, and in that regard you are on the right track, but one test with no control and a single outcome is not something you should attempt to draw any conclusion from. This is just anecdotal and not necessarily a true representation.

    You might have just as well flipped a coin. There is nothing in your test that points to results that are anything beyond random. For all you know if you repeated the test you would get the exact opposite result, or that 2 out three times you would get the opposite result.

    You need to repeat that test many times, randomly changing the order of which page goes up first, and other factors that could influence rankings.

    By the way, you don't need to worry about the influence from backlinks as the search engines provide search operators that will allow you to filter results based on any of the four primary signal groups.

    Again, I applaud your desire to experiment, but please learn a bit more about valid test methods and the tools that are available to filter results, before making conclusions and posting results that are meaningless.

    Please consider repeating your test a sufficient number of times, using controls to gather useful data and share if you are willing.
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    • Profile picture of the author smokemare
      Originally Posted by dburk View Post

      Hi smokemare,

      While I applaud your desire to experiment, and in that regard you are on the right track, but one test with no control and a single outcome is not something you should attempt to draw any conclusion from. This is just anecdotal and not necessarily a true representation.

      You might have just as well flipped a coin. There is nothing in your test that points to results that are anything beyond random. For all you know if you repeated the test you would get the exact opposite result, or that 2 out three times you would get the opposite result.

      You need to repeat that test many times, randomly changing the order of which page goes up first, and other factors that could influence rankings.

      By the way, you don't need to worry about the influence from backlinks as the search engines provide search operators that will allow you to filter results based on any of the four primary signal groups.

      Again, I applaud your desire to experiment, but please learn a bit more about valid test methods and the tools that are available to filter results, before making conclusions and posting results that are meaningless.

      Please consider repeating your test a sufficient number of times, using controls to gather useful data and share if you are willing.
      Please re-read the last part of my post:-

      "Hope you find this interesting/useful. Of course relevant high PR backlinks are critical - for this reason I have done NO promotion on these sites and won't release the address of them or the target keyword - it could skew the results.

      I'll be reporting back with the results of the further experiments as soon as the new pages are indexed."

      I WILL be doing more experiments, I just wanted to share the first result

      Originally Posted by Talen

      A recent study looked at rankings for many different keywords that were on the first page of google in positions 1-4...the study concluded that of these high ranking sites the vast majority had 1000 word or longer articles with a keyword density of under 1%
      Talen, that is the next hypothesis I want to test, a possible theory is that number of mentions give relevance, but overly high density flags as spammy. I will be conducting more tests on the same keyword to try and establish this.

      Please, don't be negative about this - I fully appreciate keyword density and mentions are only a small part of the big picture - but I have found tweaking density/number of mentions can move a site on to page 1. I doubt it will for super competitive niches, and to get #1 rank you will need to do a bit more - but it's a tool to increase the relevance of your site - and you have full control over it - so why not use it?

      If I knew people were going to make fun the idea of actually doing a series of experiments on this - I would have kept the results to myself.

      Another theory I wish to test is that pages with too many words get penalized for being too long - Like I said I'm going to be doing various tests on this, hopefully over the next few weeks I can build up a better picture of how to structure content for better relevance.
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      • Profile picture of the author scraff
        Originally Posted by smokemare View Post


        Talen, that is the next hypothesis I want to test, a possible theory is that number of mentions give relevance, but overly high density flags as spammy. I will be conducting more tests on the same keyword to try and establish this.

        ....

        Another theory I wish to test is that pages with too many words get penalized for being too long - Like I said I'm going to be doing various tests on this, hopefully over the next few weeks I can build up a better picture of how to structure content for better relevance.
        RE mentions and page length, as well as Talen's 1%, I would imagin that keyword density toward the top of the page is more important, and that keywords toward the top are the thing google looks as (I know this is obvious but hear me out)...
        I recently did some test on some pages similar to an article im trying to rank for, on the #1 spot on google, the KW Density on the competitors article was around, or I think less than 1%. BUT this was a huge page, just because there was a load of comments on the page.

        Every comment that is added to a page will dilute KW density yes? Well surely then KW density that we test when we test a whole page cant really paint an accurate picture?

        Please keep going with your experiments as I think as you said, testing page size etc is important also.
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        • Profile picture of the author rjd1265
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          • Profile picture of the author smokemare
            You are right - but Adobe is an extreme example - the number of backlinks there with click here will be huge of course!

            I think you make a valid point though - what I WILL do is once I've tested some different KWD rankings - I'll start adding backlinks with the relevant keyword to see if I can reverse the results - and get the worse KWD only site to the top of the list - and if so, how many Back links does it take?

            Surely that would be of interest?
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          • Profile picture of the author dburk
            Originally Posted by rjd1265 View Post

            I am not an expert but I do have several sites ranked 1-4 on page 1 of Google in medium to medium/high competition.

            go to google and type in "click here". adobe comes up as #1 out of 2 billion pages. If you go to their site the work "click here" is not once mentioned on the site.

            so why the #1 ranking? backlinks. simple as that. on page SEO has so little to do with rankings I am not sure why people waste all there time on that? while you sit there and do calculations on LSI keywords and main keywords making sure you are at 2.5% KWD, your competitor, ME is backlinking and taking your spot.

            Focus on what Google wants, quality backlinks and quality sites and you will see fantastic results. I see a lot of junk sites #1 and was like why? (when i was a beginner) I could not believe my awesome site, KWD that were perfect did not even show up on page 5. after seeing these junk sites having 2,000 quality, related backlinks i learned in a hurry Google does not think as much about your site as much you as you think.

            You can tell me I am wrong but I am just trying to help out. Stay focused on what matters and dont waste all your time on KWD.
            Hi rjd1265,

            I was with you right up to the point where you said "on page SEO has so little to do with rankings I am not sure why people waste all there time on that?" This is so... not true.

            Google, like other search engines, use four primary groups of signals to determine relevance. Anchor text values from backlinks is just one of those four signal groups. To suggest that the other 3 signal groups have little to do with rankings is far from true.

            Yes, if you have weak competition from those other signal groups, then you can outrank someone based solely on anchor text relevancy, but it is going to be much easier if you have high relevancy from at least one or two of those other signal groups. For an example of just how hard it would be, look at the number of backlinks with "click here" anchor text that it took for Adobe to to outrank most of the competition. Then, along comes a little website that actually optimized the other signal groups and knocked Adobe from that position, all without the aid of massive relevant backlinks.
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      • Profile picture of the author dburk
        Originally Posted by smokemare View Post

        Please re-read the last part of my post:-

        "Hope you find this interesting/useful. Of course relevant high PR backlinks are critical - for this reason I have done NO promotion on these sites and won't release the address of them or the target keyword - it could skew the results.

        I'll be reporting back with the results of the further experiments as soon as the new pages are indexed."

        I WILL be doing more experiments, I just wanted to share the first result
        Hi smokemare,

        While I am not actually encouraging you disclose the website addresses, I just wanted to let you know that there are search operators that will allow you to compare the ranking of your 2 sites without the influence of backlink anchortext factors. Which in this case you should be doing anyway to isolate the on-page factors from any inbound anchor text influence.

        Since it seems you are unaware of those operators and haven't used them in your experiment, I wanted to include that as a suggestion to ensure that you are comparing the precise data that your test was designed to track.

        Rather than comparing the regular search results, which include factors outside the scope of your test, you should, at the very least, be using the allintext: operator to isolate the ranking factors to just that group of signals. By using the allintext: operator, the allinurl, allintitle, and allinanchor signals will be isolated from your test. You will have a much cleaner set of signals with which to compare.
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  • Profile picture of the author scraff
    Thanks for this, I have just asked a similar question on a SEO forum. I have an article that has around 10% KW Density on one page, not because of stuffing, it just happened like that naturally due to the type of article (lots of little headings and bullet points). I wondered if this would be considered stuffing, even tho it wasnt.

    I know google are getting better at detecting unnatural keywords, but I was a little worried and even took some of the keywords out (which ironically made it less natural that it would be!) If you test 10% KWD, I would love to see the results
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  • Profile picture of the author jlady
    My question relates to this topic...I think.

    Lets say these are the 3 keyword phrases on 1 page you are trying to rank for

    xxx refill xxx
    refilling xxx xxx
    xxx xxx refillable

    The word refill is in all of the phrases. Would I have to have separate % density for each phrase or because each phrase has a common word will the density as a whole (for all three) be valuable for each phrase individually?
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    • Profile picture of the author dburk
      Originally Posted by jlady View Post

      My question relates to this topic...I think.

      Lets say these are the 3 keyword phrases on 1 page you are trying to rank for

      xxx refill xxx
      refilling xxx xxx
      xxx xxx refillable

      The word refill is in all of the phrases. Would I have to have separate % density for each phrase or because each phrase has a common word will the density as a whole (for all three) be valuable for each phrase individually?
      Hi jlady,

      Refill, refilling, and refillable are all different words. But, more importantly, keyword density has so little impact on rankings that you will never see anything measurable except where you have virtually no competition. In those cases it doesn't matter much since you can easily outrank the nonexistent competition.
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      • Profile picture of the author jlady
        So in that case .... if I have those 3 phrases on 1 page that I do want to rank for...what is your recommendation as to how many times to repeat it? Just 1 time?

        Originally Posted by dburk View Post

        Hi jlady,

        Refill, refilling, and refillable are all different words. But, more importantly, keyword density has so little impact on rankings that you will never see anything measurable except where you have virtually no competition. In those cases it doesn't matter much since you can easily outrank the nonexistent competition.
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        • Profile picture of the author dburk
          Originally Posted by jlady View Post

          So in that case .... if I have those 3 phrases on 1 page that I do want to rank for...what is your recommendation as to how many times to repeat it? Just 1 time?
          Hi jlady,

          Instead of simply repeating the keyword, use it prominently in the content. Use it in the headline, in the first sentence of the first paragraph, make it stand out by using a larger font-size, different font-family, or italicized, bold font, underlined or contrasting color. You get far better results by enhanced fonts then you get from simply repeating the keyword hoping for some magical density level.
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          • Profile picture of the author jlady
            I am aware of using in the first sentence but if I am going after 3 phrases that are very similar I can only put 1 phrase in the first sentence...I guess I can put 1 phrase in a headline...1 in first sentence...1 in another H1-H3 tag down the article...so that makes 1 repetition per phrase.

            Originally Posted by dburk View Post

            Hi jlady,

            Instead of simply repeating the keyword, use it prominently in the content. Use it in the headline, in the first sentence of the first paragraph, make it stand out by using a larger font-size, different font-family, or italicized, bold font, underlined or contrasting color. You get far better results by enhanced fonts then you get from simply repeating the keyword hoping for some magical density level.
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            • Profile picture of the author dburk
              Originally Posted by jlady View Post

              I am aware of using in the first sentence but if I am going after 3 phrases that are very similar I can only put 1 phrase in the first sentence...I guess I can put 1 phrase in a headline...1 in first sentence...1 in another H1-H3 tag down the article...so that makes 1 repetition per phrase.

              Hi jlady,

              Anytime you try to optimize a single page for more than one keyword, you should prioritize your optimization efforts. Choose one keyword as your primary keyword, optimize for the primary keyword and then slip in the secondary keywords where it makes sense.

              In many cases it works better to simply create additional pages and optimize each page for only one of your targeted keywords.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeyMillward
    Cool experiment, nice to see you taking action. I normally go for keyword density of between 3 - 4 % and I achieve good results.
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  • Profile picture of the author leilaleilei
    Given that you provide the right amount of density in your keyword, is there any chance that you'll rank high even if you don't have the quality content? What i mean to say here is that you should not focus only on the keyword density but also in the content quality, relevancy and how it will impact readers when they read it. Thus, giving your site a good traffic as well as low bounce rate.
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  • Profile picture of the author JerrickYeoh
    I still believe that keywords below 2% density will get better result
    above 2 percent may sound spammy and non quality content.
    Awaiting to hear to see the result soon .
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  • Profile picture of the author Targeted Traffic
    With so many keyword density tools online to attract eyeballs, this idea seems to be a myth that will not die. Many webmasters swear by it and just assume that density is somehow a sophisticated SEO tool that they must use to succeed online.

    Top SEOs look at it as overrated and even a myth...
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    • Profile picture of the author NETDAWG
      Originally Posted by Targeted Traffic View Post

      With so many keyword density tools online to attract eyeballs, this idea seems to be a myth that will not die. Many webmasters swear by it and just assume that density is somehow a sophisticated SEO tool that they must use to succeed online.

      Top SEOs look at it as overrated and even a myth...
      Yeah... honestly I have never stressed keyword stuffing and it hasn't held any of my rankings back. I didn't know some people still put emphasis on this?? Seems a bit old school. Usually putting the keyword once or a variation of it at the top of the page/content usually does the trick.
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    • Profile picture of the author scraff
      Originally Posted by Targeted Traffic View Post

      With so many keyword density tools online to attract eyeballs, this idea seems to be a myth that will not die. Many webmasters swear by it and just assume that density is somehow a sophisticated SEO tool that they must use to succeed online.

      Top SEOs look at it as overrated and even a myth...
      Ive always been led to believe that keyword density was quite important? why do some say it isnt important any more? If it used to be important and now isnt, then what SEO method has replaced it (by that I mean, what improvments have Google made to the Algarhythm to replace the importance of keywords, and what SEO methods should we be looking at instead?)
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  • Profile picture of the author webcontent
    I use a simple formula

    [No. of keywords/100] * Number of Words in Document = Keyword Density

    Generally, the keyword density is about 2-4%
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  • Profile picture of the author Talen
    A recent study looked at rankings for many different keywords that were on the first page of google in positions 1-4...the study concluded that of these high ranking sites the vast majority had 1000 word or longer articles with a keyword density of under 1%
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  • Profile picture of the author jlady
    I think from this discussion and others we really don't know if keyword density helps or not. Just like a lot of things with google...it is a mystery. Some swear by it and others swear at it!!
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  • Profile picture of the author scraff
    I think Adobe is an extreme example, but yeh, Typing in CLICK HERE, and the whole page is full of results where click here is only mentioned once.

    Ive just tried something along the same lines as rjd1265, typed "click here" into adwords keyword tool.
    And whats the first suggestion that comes up? "Flash player".
    The second? "PDF"
    3rd and 4th also flash and pdf
    5th onwards? advertising companies

    Why does this relate?
    Because there are so many sites linking to flash with the words "Click Here"? I guess so.
    But what about the advertising agencies etc?
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  • Profile picture of the author seoxcell
    Thanks for sharing a good information. Keyword density is important because search engines use this information to categorize a site's theme, and to determine which terms the site is relevant to. The perfect keyword density will help achieve higher search engine positions. Keyword density values for one-, two-, or three-word key terms.
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  • Profile picture of the author JamieSEO
    I am constantly running split tests to track what does and does not work for both myself and my clients.

    Based on the past 3 months (over 50 sites) the main thing that seemed to influence Google was not Keyword Density, but rather Keyword Priority (header tags, bolding, closeness of keywords to top of page, etc).

    Bing and Yahoo both seemed to still put a lot of weighting on the keyword density.
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    • Profile picture of the author scraff
      Originally Posted by JamieSEO View Post

      I am constantly running split tests to track what does and does not work for both myself and my clients.

      Based on the past 3 months (over 50 sites) the main thing that seemed to influence Google was not Keyword Density, but rather Keyword Priority (header tags, bolding, closeness of keywords to top of page, etc).

      Bing and Yahoo both seemed to still put a lot of weighting on the keyword density.
      Yes thats along the lines of what my thinking was. I see alot of sites ranking highly where the keywords in the first few paragraphs are bold. And obviously in the page title
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  • Profile picture of the author SilentX
    I'm going to have to agree with those that say this single test is less than meaningful. To determine a specific keyword density % is nearly impossible without looking at the algorithm itself and, even then, there may be other contributing factors that would affect the outcome depending on the niche or layout of a site.

    The important thing is to focus on an acceptable range of keyword density (2-5% in my experience) and stick with it while aiming to create high quality content that reads well and is easily follow-able by your audience without worrying too much about what exact keyword density you end up with. Naturally if you are end up with less than 1% or more than 7% I would suggest making some minor adjustments, but if your content is high quality it shouldn't make a big difference one way or the other.

    Focus less on tricking or manipulating Google's algorithm and more on engaging your audience. This will naturally lead your site to higher SERPs.
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    • Profile picture of the author smokemare
      Originally Posted by SilentX View Post

      I'm going to have to agree with those that say this single test is less than meaningful. To determine a specific keyword density % is nearly impossible without looking at the algorithm itself and, even then, there may be other contributing factors that would affect the outcome depending on the niche or layout of a site.

      The important thing is to focus on an acceptable range of keyword density (2-5% in my experience) and stick with it while aiming to create high quality content that reads well and is easily follow-able by your audience without worrying too much about what exact keyword density you end up with. Naturally if you are end up with less than 1% or more than 7% I would suggest making some minor adjustments, but if your content is high quality it shouldn't make a big difference one way or the other.

      Focus less on tricking or manipulating Google's algorithm and more on engaging your audience. This will naturally lead your site to higher SERPs.
      I think people are missing the point here - my objective is to test two simple things:-

      1. At what keyword density does a site start to get ranked down for being too high a % ?

      2. At what stage does anchor relevance trump KWD?

      All my sites are written for humans, but I try to mention the keyphrases in the text - as is surely sensible? I want to be able to look at the sites KWD using a tool like SEOQuake, and say "I'm happy with that KWD, it won't be penalized for being too high."

      If it is that actually KWD never starts to get penalized for being too high, as long as the text makes sense and reads well, then that should change the way you write.

      The fact is others may know, but I certainly do not know unequivically, exactly how KWD vs anchor relevance works out - and it might not be that simple. KWD can only influence relevance, but anchors can convey authority as well as relevance- from the PR of the linking page, and sometimes authority trumps relevance.

      So really as part of the test - I should be linking one of the pages with non-relevant anchor text from unrelated high PR pages.

      I'm not trying to invent the wheel, I just want to give myself and anyone interested a solid idea of :-
      • How high KWD % it's safe to go to?
      • How important exactly KWD is vs anchor text? At what point does anchor text trump KWD?
      As yet nobody has been able to give me a satisfactory answer to these questions with evidence, so I'm going to try to find my own evidence

      It might be interesting to to make another page which has no mention of the test keyword - then start building KW relevant links to it to see how it compares?
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  • Profile picture of the author kkchoon
    I keep my keyword density below 1.5%, usually is between 1% to 1.5%, that works great for me. Many people tends to ignore the side wide links, pictures, header, footer links, post titles that contains the keywords, all add up will be very spammy...
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    • Profile picture of the author thecableguy
      JMO but it depends on the length of the keyword if it looks spammy or not, a longtail keyword can look spammy even once in an article, but a shorter one or two keyword can be used a lot more often and still not look spammy.

      Previously I would have said around 2% because Google's algorithims are constantly changing. And I'm not saying this site doesn't look spammy, but it's been at #1 or 2 for over a year now without a whole lot of backlinks:

      tinnitusmiraclev.com (tinnitus miracle) keyword density over 7%

      And it actually shows up as one of the most relevant keywords in Google's tool (many sites don't).

      Some food for thought. I'm not saying the site doesn't look spammy, but it worked in the SERPs at least.
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  • Profile picture of the author justinpaul
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    • Profile picture of the author smokemare
      An update - I created a third page which pushed the target KWD higher than ever, the single word was 7.01 % density - now it has been indexed, because a long-tail search will pick up the page, however it has not indexed at all for the target keyword on it's own.

      What does this mean?

      1. It could be doing the shuffle - we'll give it a couple of days, but I think this is unlikely.

      2. At some point between the next highest one google starts to see a site as too spammy so removes it's relevance score from that KW completely. The interesting thing is, if this holds true - and it doesn't appear or jump the que, google doesn't simply rank more optimum KWD sites higher than you - it ditches you from the results for that particular keyword.

      I have created another similar length, similar site which mentions the keyword no times at all, then linked it from one other site. I am now waiting to see where in the scheme of things it gets placed with only one incoming link and no mention of the target keyword.

      Personally I don't think one PR0 relevant anchor link will shoot it to the top, I think it will rank behind the other sites - but I think it will rank, unlike the 7% spammy looking site. If it does - it it doesn't after a few weeks , I will add a second contextual link and see how that changes things.

      Obviously all this is on a fairly macrocosmic level - but I think we can learn some basic principles from this. For a starter, unless it's doing the shuffle and settles into a better position - 7% is categorically too high for KWD and could result in a site being de-listed. It's possible there are other factors responsible for this non-rank result, but I think it would be sage and prudent to keep KWD of the target KW below 6% and probably below 5%.
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      • Profile picture of the author smokemare
        I've also now thrown in a page with a lot more content on it - it gives 1.57% density with 18 repeats of the target KW.

        How will that compare to the currently winning 4.86% density, 18 repeats page?

        My money is that it will beat it, and that the anchor text page will initially lose to all of these - but a certain number of links will start to push it above the KWD pages.

        I haven't tested a combination of KWD and anchor text links - I suspect that page would do quite well. For now I want to keep it clean and seperate though.

        Results will be published here as soon as they are in
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        • Profile picture of the author smokemare
          Bizarrely the 7.01% KWD page is now ranking 1, the 1. something and the 4.86% pages are delisted and don't appear to be in the index at all - could be because the 7.01 has been added they are temporarily missing while the correct order is worked out?

          The page which discusses the whole is experimented is still listed which is interesting, the page with no mention but one exact anchor text link is listed as 2nd place.

          The page which has a low density but lots of mentions is not listed yet.

          I suspect what we're seeing here is an interim result while google sorts the orders of these pages all out. Hopefully I'll have something solid within a few weeks.
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          • Profile picture of the author smokemare
            The experiment continues - as of now the results are:-

            #1 = The 7.01 % Density page
            #2 = The 4.86 % Density page
            #3 = The 1.95 % Density page
            #4 = The summary of the experiment blog page (Density 2.70)

            I don't know why summary page is lower than the 1.95% page - it's either still doing the google dance, has lowered relevance because it has an outgoing contextual link of the target keyphrase or it's something to do with the rest of the content.

            Interestingly the page with low density, many mentions has indexed - and is finable with a URL search - but doesn't rank for the target keyword? Again it's either doing the dance or Google doesn't like overly long pages or something.

            Also the page without any mention of the target Keyphrase is indexed and findable with a URL search - but doesn't rank at all with the target keyphrase - which isn't mentioned on the site but has 1 contextual anchor text link to it.

            Why this is I don't know, I'm going to give it more time in case it's stuck in the google dance or something... Then I'm going to build 5 contextual anchor text backlinks to it and see if that gets it ranked - if so, where?

            My conclusion so far is that Keyword relevance is significantly easier to increase with good on page SEO. I think the reason people are so 'rightly' focused on backlinks at the moment is that there is no cap on the amount of relevance you can gain through them - whereas with the onpage side of things - there is probably a soft limit as to how much relevance you can build in.

            Does this mean it's worth forgetting onpage SEO? No, I think personally the first thing to do is to get the onpage as good as you can - then devote all your time to backlinking. Once the on page is right, it's right you can't do much more - there's no such thing as the right backlinks though, you can never really have too many if they are built properly.

            I suppose to put it as an analogy, it's like google wanting you write out the alphabet A - Z perfectly on the page and count to as high a number as possible on that page 1, 2, 3, 4... The on page is writing the alphabet out - it's not that hard, but the search engine sees it as important. Get it right - then start counting! There is no limit to what number you can get to, even if you could count up to a googolplexplexplex, you could still count to googolplexplexplex and one... And that part is the backlink building.

            I really want to see where backlinks start to trump on-page. And that's what I'm still waiting to find out. Eventually it does - by an exponential amount, but where? I can't be sure... Yet!
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            • Profile picture of the author smokemare
              New result is in!

              The super low density - 1.53 % but with many, many mentions is indexed and ranked. The way I did this was to write a large amount of text and make sure the number of mentions was way over the other pages, but that the density was low due to the amount of extra text.

              The result is...

              #4

              Meaning the only page it trumps is the summary page. Now the only thing I can think that allows it to trump the summary page is the use of the keyword in headers and titles and such-like.

              Still no sign of no mentions, but contextual backlinks from a relevant page.

              What does this mean to me? Well, i think any pages which I want to rank higher for, but are in non-competitive keywords, I might increase my KWD and aim for 7%

              Obviously backlinks can always trump KWD, but in a non-competitive niche, it's probably a lot easier to outrank with KWD, than running around spending money on backlinks or writing articles and blogs.... And the KWD is free, it doesn't take much time - It's a great idea so far as I can see. Focusing 100% on Backlinks is probably only worth it once your on page is good and if you are in a competitive niche.
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              • Profile picture of the author smokemare
                I don't know whether it's an indexing problem - or that a site has to have smoe relevant onpage content to rank - but so far, despite putting contextual links on five relevant sites that were ranking for the term - the site which doesn't mention it at all is not even listed.

                Again, this points to keyword distribution being an important and worthwhile part of the SEO plan. Maybe not AS important as a good backlink building campaign - but certainly NOT to be ignored.
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