Keyword Density
The percentage
of words on a web page that match a specified set of keywords
is referred to as Keyword Density. In the context of search
engine optimization keyword density can be used as a factor
in determining whether a web page is relevant to a specified
keyword or keyword phrase. Due to the ease of managing keyword
density, search engines usually implement other measures of
relevancy to prevent unscrupulous webmasters from creating
search spam through practices such as keyword stuffing.
Keyword Frequency
Frequency is how often a keyword appears on the page or in an area on the page. In general, the more times a keyword appears on the page, the more relevant it will be to that search.
You don't want to go overboard with frequency since many engines will penalize you for keyword "spamming" if they feel you were excessive. In general though, use your keyword in the document in as many different areas as you can, toward the beginning of those areas, and as many times as is recommended for that
Frequency counts will often vary depending on whether you selected exact matching on the first tab of the Page Critic screen. Frequency will also vary depending on whether you enable partial matching. In addition, if you perform a case-sensitive search by including one or more upper case letters in your keyword, then your frequency count may vary.
To see what WebPosition is considering a "match," simply go to the Page Editor tab of the Page Critic, and click the Find Next button. This button will find each occurrence of the keyword or phrase within the HTML document. The number of matches it finds should match the total frequency reported in the Page Analysis table.
Keyword Placement (Area)
The area in which the keyword is found plays a key role for many searches. Having the keyword in the Title tag on most search engines will give more relevance to the page than the same keyword appearing in the body area. To rank well generally requires you have keywords in many of the areas in which a search engine looks.
The areas that are the most important will vary by search engine. Examples of "areas" of a page are Title, Heading, Link Text, and Body. See Areas for more information.
Keyword Prominence
Prominence is how close to the start of the area that the keyword appears. In general, a keyword that appears closer to the top of the page, toward the beginning of a paragraph, or toward the beginning of a tag will be more relevant. However, sometimes it helps to have a keyword in the middle of an area, or even toward the end of the area.
Prominence also applies to the words within the body of the document, the headings, and other tags.
Prominence not only plays a critical role in the search engines, but it is also very important in directory-based engines such as Yahoo. With directories, having the keyword phrase slightly more towards the beginning of the site description or site title will often make a large difference in your ranking.
Keyword Weight
Keyword weight is the percentage or concentration of keywords on your page in relation to all other words on the page. A "keyword" can be either a single word, or a short phrase.
Keyword weight refers to the number of keywords appearing in the page area divided by the total number of words appearing in that area. More accurately, the formula WebPosition computes the weight a little differently depending on whether the keyword is a single word or a multi-word phrase.
Weight formula:
(number of words in the keyword phrase * frequency) / total words in area
Therefore, your weight will logically increase when the number of keywords on the page increases or the number of words on the page decreases.
Some search engines consider keyword weight when determining the rank of your page for a particular keyword search. In general, the higher the weight the better, but only to a point. If your weight becomes too high, you may be penalized.
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