Agence MMCréation • Technologie, évolution et conseil

Keyword Stuffing: Obsolete and risky

Understanding the Keyword stufffing and avoiding

Understanding le Keyword stuffing and éviter

What is keyword stufﬁng?

Keyword stufﬁng, or keyword stuffing, is an abusive SEO technique that aims to artiﬁcially improve the positioning of a web page, or a GMB ﬁche, by excessively repeating the same keyword. Perceived as spam, this practice seeks to manipulate search engines to obtain a better ranking in the SERPs.

However, with the evolution of algorithms, the relevance criteria have changed. Today, search engines, and Google in particular, value the quality of content and the user experience to the detriment of over-optimisation practices.

How to recognise keyword stufﬁng

This practice can manifest itself in two main forms: visible stuffing and hidden stuffing.

1) Visible stuffing:

This is the most obvious form, involving the excessive and unnatural inclusion of keywords, which detracts from the readability of the content and therefore the user experience.

Examples include

Unnecessary repetition of words : "Our hotel in the Ardèche is the best hotel in the region. If you're looking for a hotel in the area, our hotel in Ardèche is for you!"
Adding keywords out of context : Insert popular terms unrelated to the theme of the page.

2) Hidden stuffing:

Some techniques aim to hide keywords aﬁn order to make them visible only to search engines.

Examples:

Invisible text : Use a very small font or a colour identical to that of the background.
Excessive insertion in the source code : Place too many keywords in the <title>, <meta description>, alt tags or comments in the HTML code.
Landing pages duplicated : Create several pages with identical or very similar content, each optimised for a specific keyword.

Why avoid Keyword stufﬁng?

Using this practice can have several negative consequences. In particular:

Poor user experience : Content overloaded with keywords becomes difﬁcult to read and encourages visitors to leave the page quickly. This increases the bounce rate and consequently tells crawlers that the site offers a poor user experience.
Risk of Google penalty : algorithms such as Google Panda and Google Hummingbird detect this practice and may downgrade or even de-index the page concerned. Google analyses the context rather than focusing on the number of times the keyword is used.
Loss of credibility : Poor quality content can damage a site's reputation and deter visitors from returning.
Impact on the conversion rate : Repetitive, artiﬁcial text can reduce visitor engagement and lower the conversion rate.

With its March update, Google is strengthening its focus on search intent and EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust), aimed at punishing abusive content.

"This is a regular update aimed at better highlighting content that is relevant and satisfying for internet users, whatever the type of site. We are also continuing our work to give greater prominence to creators' content, with a series of improvements throughout the year. Some of these are already in place, while others will come later."

Good SEO practices to adopt

Rather than trying to fool the search engines, it's better to adopt sustainable SEO strategies that comply with ofﬁcial recommendations.

Use keywords naturally : Insert them ﬂuidly in your sentences.
Give priority to the lexical field : Use a semantic cocoon, with synonyms, derivatives as well as terms associated m the main theme.
Produce quality content : Offer real added value to readers. Think more about search intent than about search engines.
Optimise exaggerate : A good keyword ratio is around 1 or 2% of the text.
Take care with meta tags and titles : Use them appropriately without unnecessary overload.
Structure your content correctly : Include headings (Hn), lists and well-spaced paragraphs.
Work on internal and external linking : Add internal links to other pages on your site and outgoing links to ﬁable sources.
Take search intent into account : Adapt the content to users' expectations by providing precise answers to their questions.
Focus on UX : Clear, structured and interactive content encourages visitors to stay longer on the site.