Keyword terminology

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This page lists and defines terms used when discussing keywords for search engine optimization (SEO). For a definition of keywords and how to research and choose keywords, see Keywords.

Contents 1 Keyword competition 2 Keyword density 3 Keyword frequency 4 Keyword matching 5 Keyword phrase 6 Keyword popularity 7 Keyword prominence 8 Keyword proximity 9 Keyword research 10 Keyword-rich pages 11 Keyword stuffing

Keyword competition

Keyword competition is the number of web pages that are optimized for or that appear in search results for a particular keyword. For example, "web host" has about 9,950,000 results in Google with quotation marks and about 28,100,000 results without quotation marks. The keyword competition is very high for this keyword. More specific keywords have less competition. Example: "Australia ecommerce web host" has only one result with quotation marks and about 272,000 results without them.

Keyword density

Keyword density refers to how often a keyword is used relative to the rest of the text on the page. A 500-word page with a keyword used five times, for example, will have a higher keyword density than a 1200-word page with a keyword used 10 times. Keyword density is often expressed as the ratio of the keyword to the total number of words on the page.
A higher keyword density is not always better. Search engines may label a page with a very high keyword density as having keyword stuffing instead.

Keyword frequency

Keyword frequency is similar to keyword density except that it refers to the frequency (number of times) that a keyword is used on this page. For example, the word keyword is used very frequently on this page (but because of the word's keyword popularity, this page is not likely to appear early in search results for just the word keyword).
Keyword frequency is one of the factors that search engines use to determine a page's relevancy for that keyword. Be careful to avoid keyword stuffing, however.

Keyword matching

Keyword matching is how keywords that advertisers bid on interact with search queries. There are four types of keyword matching:

• Broad match: your ad can appear with search results for one or more words in the query as well as for singular/plural forms, synonyms, other relevant variations, and for the words in a different order. For example, if you bid on a broad match for domain names, your ad could appear with search result for domain names, domain name, name domain, and domain, among other variations. A broad match is the default option.
• Phrase match: your ad can appear with search results for your term in quotation marks. For example, "domain names" could appear with domain names and .in domain names but not for domain name or domain .in names.
• Exact match: your ad can appear only with results for the exact keyword or keyword phrase that you indicate with brackets around it. Example: [domain names] could appear only with results for domain names, not for any of the other examples listed in this section.
• Negative keyword: your ad will not appear with search results that include terms you list as negative keywords. If you specify that your ad is to appear with search results for domain names except for search results that include the search term free, free is your negative keyword.

Keyword phrase

A keyword phrase (also called key phrase) is a phrase of two or more keywords that's used for search engine optimization. For example, a page at a web hosting website might be optimized for the keyword phrase small business web host or dedicated game servers, as well as for other keyword phrases.
Keyword phrases are often just called keywords along with their single-word counterparts.

Keyword popularity

Keyword popularity refers to how many web pages have the keyword. For example, a Google search for "web hosting" (with the quotation marks) produces "about 131,000,000" results. Web hosting is a very popular keyword.

Keyword prominence

Keyword prominence is the prominence of keywords on a page. Keywords are more prominent in these locations:

• The title element
• The <h1> and other heading tags
• Near the top of the page
• Near the start of sentences
• In alt tags

Search engines give more weight to keywords when they're more prominent on a page. For SEO, use keywords not only in the above locations but (where applicable) close to the start of those locations as well. For example, "Free domain name with your web hosting account" is a better heading for SEO than "Your web hosting account comes with a free domain name" (when optimizing for free domain name).

Keyword proximity

Keyword proximity refers to how close two keywords are to each other on a web page. Search engines give weight to the closeness of keywords. The keyword phrase dedicated hosting server, for example, is given much more weight as a keyword phrase than the three words would have if they were separated by other words.

Keyword research

Keyword research is the process of researching keywords that will bring targeted traffic to each page at your site. See How to research keywords.

Keyword-rich pages

Keyword-rich pages have a high keyword density and have good keyword prominence. In other words, their content is full of keywords in key places.

Keyword stuffing

Keyword stuffing is overusing a keyword to increase the keyword density for that keyword on its page. Example: "Our cheap dedicated servers are the best. We specialize in cheap dedicated servers. We've been providing cheap dedicated servers since we went into business to provide cheap dedicated servers two years ago. To read more about cheap dedicated servers, click on the cheap dedicated servers link." Repeating the same keyword out of context is also keyword stuffing.
Keyword stuffing can (but shouldn't) be done in these places:

• On the page where visitors read it (as in the above example), including in the heading tags
• As hidden text by making it the same color as the page background
• In the page meta tags
• In the page alt tags
• In the page title element

Keyword stuffing is a type of black hat SEO, which means that search engines may penalize a website if the search engine bots detect the technique being used.

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