How does keyword density in the title tag affect search engine placement? On Facts about Title Keyword Density, it says that Live.com rewards high keyword density in a title tag, whereas Google.com punishes high keyword density in a title tag.
I don’t really care about search engines other than Google. I’ve heard SEO experts claim that Yahoo! and MSN/Live still contribute a fair number of clicks, but that’s not true according to my server stats. I’d like to find out if Google really does punish keyword density in a title tag.
I created 3 similar pages for a fictional person, whose name currently return zero results in Google. Using the name as the search term, there are 3 different keyword weights.
This may not be the best test methodology, but at least it’s a start. In a few days, I’ll see how Google ranks them. Any opinions on how the pages will rank?
OK, it turned out that was a very poor test: all 3 pages are included in Google’s index, but the search returns Test A along with this message:
In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 1 already displayed.
If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.
Including the omitted results displays A, C, and B (in that order)–which basically tells us nothing at all. I will attempt to vary the other text on the page without upsetting any of the other factors that might affect how Google ranks the pages (e.g. overall keyword density), but they might still be too similar.
Damn that’s too bad, I was thinking about this last night and wanted to see how the test went.
Google has indexed the revised pages, and although it still omits similar entries, it now lists Test C first, followed by B and A.
Although it would suggest that a lower keyword density is better, I have no idea if this result is actually meaningful.