Google 'takes action on keyword stuffing'

26 July 2007

Sites unnecessarily laden with keywords may find their natural search ranking damaged, warns Matt Cutts.

The head of Google's Webspam team makes the statement in a blog post advising against the use of hidden textareas and other covert means of including key terms for search engine optimisation purposes.

He writes: "As always, webmasters are free to do what they want on their own sites.

"But Google reserves the right to do what we think is best to maintain the relevance of our search results and that includes taking action on keyword stuffing."

Mr Cutts refers webmasters to Google's guidelines on appropriate content and recommended ways of boosting natural search rankings.

These include establishing a clear hierarchy, with at least one static text link leading to each page of content.

Websites with more than 100 pages of content may benefit from a categorised site map split over a number of pages, according to the guidelines.

Category: Natural search