Updated: April 4, 2012
Rarely do we get a glimpse of a Google algorithm update before it occurs. But during a recent panel discussion at the SXSW event in Austin, Texas, Google’s spam chief Matt Cutts announced some minor tweaks to the search engine’s algorithm.
Dubbed the “Venice” update, Cutts said Google would punish sites that are too optimized for SEO, or what he called “over optimized” or “overly SEO’d” (…according to reports from HubSpot and Search Engine Land).
Although Cutts initially had planned not to announce the update ahead of time, he decided to go ahead and spill the beans following a question the panel received from an attendee at the SXSW event.
Basically, the question asked what Google was doing to prevent overly optimized content. For example, if you search for “three-winged widgets” on Google and the first result is just a keyword stuffed document, it won’t have much value to you, the reader.
In his response to the attendee’s question, Cutts explained the changes as “trying to make the algorithm more adaptive.” Sites that will be penalized will be those who are clearly engaging in keyword stuffing, exchanging too many links and any other practices that go beyond “…what a normal person would expect.”
I’ve done things SEO-e and other sources have suggested I do. Will I have to worry about being penalized for following standard recommendations?
A similar question was asked of Cutts by our friend Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land and the short answer is no, it won’t.
Those who will be penalized are sites whose content is driven by keywords rather than topics. If you’re selecting topics based on what you’re audience wants you shouldn’t have anything to worry about provided you’re not stuffing your content with keywords. As we’ve said before, if you spam your content with keywords to the point that it doesn’t read naturally, your site will be either ignored or penalized.
In a follow-up to Cutts’ response, Bing’s Duane Forrester added that social sharing is an important signal as to how others value your content. If others think you have great content, they will “…amplify it” Forrester explains.
“If you’re not engaged socially, you’re missing the boat because the conversation is happening socially about you and about your content. Those are really important signals for us,” explains Forrester.
In light of these revelations by Cutts, we want to take a moment to reiterate the old rule of thumb.
- 2-3 separate, unique keywords on a page
- Vary your use of keywords (i.e. singular, plural, stemming, synonyms)
- Above all, make sure your copy reads naturally. If it feels spammy to you, then it likely contains too many keywords
In the end, if you’re writing with your readers in mind first and the search engines second, you should be okay. Make your readers the first priority and the rankings will follow provided your site is easily crawlable so the bots can actually read and index your content.
Read some of our prior posts on keywords and how you can maximize keyword instances without your content being too spammy.
Are you concerned about Google’s Venice update? What are your thoughts on penalizing sites for over-optimization?
Other Posts You May Be Interested In
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Latent Semantic Indexing – A New Way to Look at Keywords
Standard Keyword Research Won’t Always Tell you what your Prospects are Looking For
11 Steps to Increasing Keyword Saturation while Maintaining Valuable Content