What is keyword stuffing?

Keyword stuffing is a relatively old form of online marketing. Nevertheless, it is still frequently applied today. This while it is a technique that cannot always be positive for the SEO of a page. With keyword stuffing, an excess of keywords is used. If at all possible, the keyword is processed within a page. This mainly concerns popular search terms that are relevant to the website. Sometimes even keywords are used that are not relevant for the page in question. But what exactly is keyword stuffing? And why can it have a very negative influence on your position within Google? 

Definition of keyword stuffing 

It is impossible for Google to evaluate every website separately. This is therefore done via so-called algorithms. These algorithms do very well on specific search terms. Terms that are often searched for. If these terms are also relevant to a certain page, it will logically also end up in the search results. When one word occurs frequently on a page, then that page will be attributed a higher position on the basis of that one keyword. 

It would therefore seem to have many advantages to stuff every page full of keywords. However, nothing is further from the truth. If keyword stuffing is used in the wrong way, it can have a detrimental effect on the position in the search results. 

Adverse effect on SEO 

Keyword stuffing is also known as Black Hat SEO. This term is used when tricks are deliberately used to end up higher in the search results. This means that there is no longer any organic search traffic. Visitors are attracted to a page (sometimes entirely unjustly). The most qualitative sites are no longer at the top, but rather sites that do not really deserve this. Precisely to keep the quality of the search results high, there have been many search algorithm updates in recent years. 

Google penalises pages that use keyword stuffing. In addition, since 2013 they have become very effective in detecting such pages. This has really caused the search results to be swept aside and many pages that used to score well have now dropped to the bottom of the lists.