SEO tip: Avoid keyword stuffing

Alex Chiu claims to have invented an immortality device:

Alex Chiu web page

Wow, who wouldn’t want to stay young forever? But there’s a snag. Alex claims that Google doesn’t include alexchiu.com in its index because, you know, Google is trying to suppress the immortality device. Here’s part of what one of his pages says:

Alex Chiu message

I wonder if there could be some other reason that the domain doesn’t show up in Google? If you go back to Alex’s eternal life page and look at the bottom of the page, you’ll notice a very small textarea:

Alex Chiu text area

Hmm. It’s just a few pixels by a pixels, but it looks like there’s some text in there. So if you view the source of the page… uh oh:

Alex Chiu text

“Internal vaginal aphrodisia doping hardware?” Huh? And what does a “plasma tv advanced chart” have to do with immortality? It looks like about 50KB of keywords are stuffed into that tiny textarea, from celebrity names to complete nonsense like “tupac kazaa hospital” and “alien cemetary.”

If I were wondering why I didn’t show up in Google, I would review our webmaster guidelines and read the information listed under Don’t load pages with irrelevant keywords. As always, webmasters are free to do what they want on their own sites, but Google reserves the right to do what we think is best to maintain the relevance of our search results, and that includes taking action on keyword stuffing.

264 Responses to SEO tip: Avoid keyword stuffing (Leave a comment)

  1. OK, Matt you made your point.

    And now, be honest – how many Alex Chiu rings you actually wear? Or is it only for G top dogs ? :)))

  2. Well.. OBVIOUSLY the reference to an alien cemetery is NOT nonsense – he’s trying to make the point that the very existence of Alien Cemeteries PROVES beyond doubt that the device works – if only the Alien’s had access to neodymium magnets they could have avoided their cruel fate altogether πŸ˜‰

  3. “As always, webmasters are free to do what they want on their own sites, but Google reserves the right to do what we think is best to maintain the relevance of our search results, and that includes taking action on keyword stuffing.”

    My sentiments exactly. Clearly, engaging in keyword stuffing alone doesn’t get any free referrals from popular blogs to make up for the lack of search engine referrals. You have to WhineBait Matt Cutts so that he’ll mention your domain on his blog.

    Disclaimer: I did not visit any domains that may have been mentioned in Matt’s post. Your mileage may vary.

  4. That’s a great example I can use to show clients how not to spam google, although it seems he has put a positive spin on being banned! Seems to be a legendary business man!

  5. Why avoid it? It works great. As long as you guys don`t come up with a fully-automatic detection, there is no need to avoid keyword stuffing.

    And, to be honest…it`s fun searching for stupid terms like “alien cemetary” and finding ridiculous sites like alexchiu.com. This is how you lern real SEO. πŸ™‚
    Matt, you wanna find Google`s bugs yourself…so why ask people to stop doing it? You better come up with real solutions to stop spam.

    I know,…my post is somehow ironic, but I think denunciation, spam & linkreports…that is not how it should be.
    Best Regards, Jab

  6. Really funny post πŸ™‚ It reminds me of a popular saying: when you point your finger at someone, three of your fingers are pointing at you.

  7. Matt,

    It seems that GOOG’s anti-spam algos are getting very smart and more intelligent indeed!

    Or was that an excellent anti-spam job of a human googler πŸ™‚

    Having said that I’m just wondering; how could such an “immortality-gadget” get a patent in USA?

  8. For a moment there, I thought it was our friend Ionut Alex. Chitu who was claiming to have invented an immortality device and had forgotten how to spell his own name! πŸ™‚

  9. And he didn’t even flood his page with irrelevant keywords in a smart, hidden or hard to discover way… no no, just a very small text box… I think it’s hilarious πŸ™‚

  10. Damn – that’s a classic example of “Keyword stuffing” – it gave a whole new meaning to the word.

    Cheers!
    Mani

  11. Harith, your comment just lit up something!
    Would a google employee do something like that stupid?
    Would he? Would he…?

  12. I agree Matt, but don’t you think that you’re giving exposure (traffic and an incoming link from the blog of matt cutts) to the website, by posting the link ? πŸ™‚

  13. Hello Matt.

    Searching in Google “mydomain .com” with inverted commas, I have seen that there are people that inlcuye in pages a link towards my domain with words on sex, drugstores or things like that.

    This is nine technical on the part of the spammers to confuse Google and that this one could not identify so easily to the pages that do this, because now many webs appear linkadas with these words.

    You habeis in view of account(bill) of it?

  14. The really good news is that web sites stand more and more chance of being rated by content first and other things second.

    I’ve always believed and advised that relevant, recent, and regularly updated content is the one thing that will raise SERPS above all else. Good content leads to genuine, deep inbound links (before I hear one of you cry “What about links”) and good content contains genuine outbound links to relevant sites of interest.

    I support wholeheartedly all algos that spot keyword stuffing and other old school tricks.

    Does that give me eternal youth, too?

  15. Mani,

    I was referring to identifying spam pages loaded with irrelevant keywords, and whether the identification was done by algos or by human googler at Google Search Quality Team!

  16. Matt – You’re sure it’s not just because Google’s scared of Alex putting you out of business!?

  17. “SEO tip”? I would rather say that’s more a “Seo Rule”, than just a tip πŸ˜‰

  18. Dave (original)

    Never seen a spammer yet own up and admit to spamming.

    Matt, this a reason why myself and others NEVER want spammers to be told ANYTHING other than a link to the Guidelines. You last post with the vote, was over-run with people wanting Google to tell spammers more detail on bans/penalties. Don’t do it! PLeeeeeeeasssssssse πŸ™‚

  19. No…no…No! A Thousand times, no!

    There is no excuse to BAN the ENTIRE SITE!! NONE whatsoever.

    Even the homepage should not be banned – Google sometimes will do a keyword banning – where a site will show up for a check on the URL but NOT show up for any keyword searches.

    SEOs know that regardless of the keywords on a page – the real power comes from the quality anchor text backlinks – so it is unlikely that the person in question would really be getting a great deal of relevant traffic.

    Essentially, what difference is there in loading a page with irrelevant keywords – and putting those same keywords in META DESCRIPTION or ALT TAGS.

    Banning is unethical – it is a form of censorship. The only sites that should be banned are those that sneak malware onto the computers of unsuspecting visitors.

    Google also factors in Click Popularity – so users who are deceived will be measurable by their time spent before returning to Google SERPS.

    Hence, a site will drop much lower on the SERPs because of this constant pattern.

    Let the public decide what sites they should or should not visit. Don’t decide for them. Banning is WRONG and undemocratic and a coward’s way out.

    SearchEnginesWeb insists that you change your policies this instant!

  20. They commit in a silly mistake. However, I see many sites use external CSS stylesheet and display:none to do keyword stuffing and can get around Google. e.g. avantbiz.com makes a class “t-seo”, and then stuff keywords and paragraphs, and links in the homepage. However, all these text and links cannot be seen by visitors. They did it for several years and gain good rankings. Indeed, they have a whole network of sites and use the same techniques.

    I wonder why Google cannot catch them.

  21. Hi Matt,
    I think that Google as any other company can decide (and must) whatever to show on its searches results.
    As any other company decides for their suppliers Google can decide to ban or not their suppliers (website). But what I really do not respect on Google, repeat I do not respect, but accept it, is the fact that the decisions are taken out of the blue!
    Sometimes some web developers, bloggers do not have the experience that it takes to be under Google’s guidelines, and commit some mistakes and those mistakes are rewarded with exclusion or supplemental index…
    I think it’s just not fair, why does Google do not notify giving the reason and a time to get it fixed?
    Cheers
    Lucio

  22. > And what does a “plasma tv advanced chart” have
    > to do with immortality?

    Well, what are you gonna do after living, say, 400 years, having seen every city in the world, having tasted every food and wine, and having gone on every imaginable adventure?

    You’ll end up home watching TV all day, that’s what!

  23. @garethjax

    There is a no-follow on the outgoing link πŸ™‚

    Not sure about the eternal youth, but he’s sure gonna get eternal embarassment !

  24. You’re almost helping them by banning them – imagine if they can’t claim that “very important people don’t want you to know about Chiu” :D. Next thing they’ll set up a robots.txt to block the other search engines as well.

    I am kind of wondering how the site would do if it wasn’t banned. It certainly won’t rank for “plasma tv”, so what good would it do them? How quickly would they be reincluded if they removed that code block and files a reinclusion request?

  25. You’re all missing the Big Picture – this guy has a patent, so his techniques must work, mustn’t they?

    Kudos to MC for giving him free publicity; Kudos to him for promoting the β€œalien cemetary” – since X-Files went, so few people have supported alien rights..

    But as for the point I suspect MC wanted to make, it is timely; at least two forums have recently had threads about using text areas for ‘extra text’ – and at least one of them has effectively encouraged this kind of spamming.

    So it’s good to know that Google has already rumbled this one.

  26. @SearcHEnGinesWeB

    I insist that you learn the difference between tags and attributes.

  27. Don’t bother. I sent them email a few months ago about that:

    I’m writing to let you know something you maybe do not know, and might
    help you. It concerns the question of why you aren’t in Google’s
    index. It might be that it’s because the big guys there know that you
    found out something revolutionary, and are scared of that. But I must
    say that there is a much simpler explanation. Addressing that could
    help your publicity, especially if Google still won’t include you in
    their index.

    On your main page, http://www.alexchiu.com/, you have a textarea
    element, named S1, with 0 rows and 0 columns, so it would not be
    visible to visitors of your site. That element, unfortunately,
    contains very much text (about as much as the rest of the main page
    together), and moreover, that text is looking much like spam (sexual
    enhancers, various link farms, money schemes, and other spammish words
    are mentioned). When Googlebot visits your site, it sees these words,
    and thinks your site is spam. So it doesn’t index it.

    Second, but I think less important, on your “interesting links” page
    (http://www.alexchiu.com/links.cgi), you have linked to gotlinks.com,
    a link farm which is notorious for its web spamming practices. When
    you remove the hidden textarea element, and links to those link farms,
    submit a reinclusion request to Google, and I’m almost sure Google
    will include you again. If they don’t then you’ll have much more
    credibility for your claims. The whole process is detailly explained
    on http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/reinclusion-request-howto/.

    I wish you luck in informing people about your product. It would be
    very unfortunate if some trivial hidden textarea prevents you from
    helping the humanity.
    If you have more questions about the reinclusion, or Google’s
    indexing, feel free to ask.

    Of course, they didn’t reply. I think they _want_ to act as a victim of some big conspiracy, it actually helps their publicity (or at least they think so). Maybe they even stuffed that page in that intention: not (primarily) because they wanted to rank for many keywords, but because they wanted to get banned, so they could pull that as their biggest argument about the greatness of what they have to say.

  28. LOL what garbage. I wonder how many people actually buy into that scam! Very creative spin on being caught for keyword stuffing though.

  29. Great post Matt, expose more sites like this. I like the fact that you have ensured no link juice is passed over.

    πŸ™‚

  30. Now he got the publish he always wished for…

  31. Hi Matt,

    I laughed so hard at this I nearly choaked on my cornflakes πŸ™‚

    What on earth are people trying to achieve by these practices – beats me!

    I figure Google has amongst the highest concentration of brain power in the world – and people want to fool you – not great odds

  32. Alien Cemetary? Oh that sounds likes a place I would like to go…

  33. Unless you were an alien of course πŸ˜‰

  34. “Alien Cemetary”

    That is classic… Thanks for the laugh early in the morning on hump day!

  35. Maybe he did it to get banned on purpose? Being banned seems to make up almost 1/2 of his marketing technique.

    If he got re listed in Google, what else would he have to rant about?

  36. I got a kick out of this, but I got an even bigger kick out of reading the patent.

  37. I got a kick out of this, but I got an even bigger kick out of reading the patent.

  38. He does hold the patent all right.. http://www.google.com/patents?id=maEYAAAAEBAJ&dq=5989178. I have a feeling we won’t be seeing a nice analysis on Bill Slawski’s blog though. πŸ™‚

  39. Matt, great post. But I’m left wondering if his site was banned automatically or only after review. Does Google trust its “keyword stuffing detection” to the point where sites are delisted without human review?

  40. “SEOs know that regardless of the keywords on a page – the real power comes from the quality anchor text backlinks – so it is unlikely that the person in question would really be getting a great deal of relevant traffic.”

    Apparently Google knows something that SEOs don’t.

    Still, we can not understand the true power of Chiu’s immortaliy rings. Maybe Google is being a bit touchy and that immortality does have something to do with “having pregnant disruptive innovation.”

    Besides, Chiu is doing nothing wrong. Clearly, battery ninjas and Napoleon Dynamite are advertising via semi-elusive plain text ads. If you haven’t heard, it’s the latest rage.

    Google doesn’t have a policy against that, does it?

  41. Dear sir,

    I like what you have to say about fibroids autism fungus diarrhea, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

  42. ha ha ha good article Matt!!!

    While working for a client, I came across another one that has gamed google really well, and does quite well for search strings:

    http://www.privatepsychiatry.co.uk/

    Looks normal? ofcourse – no dodgly dealings!! but highlight a selection of teh home page white area…

    see the problem?

    lol. I had to turn down the client because he wanted me to do the same…

  43. Hey Matt,

    You got one, but you missed another two:

    http://superiching.com/glassball.htm
    http://www.realimmortality.com/sunmoon/

    It not only uses the same trick, but has most of the same words (looks like they’ve added a few more)!

    If you want to find those page, search for “Chad Isaak” and “highlights outline overview timelines leviticus” with quotes…I’m assuming that’s Chris’ long-lost identical twin brother from another mother and something to do with the Bible, respectively. Yes, I’m fully aware that no one would look for these phrases normally, but you can never guess at what people are going to do.

    Ban ’em all Matt. Hang ’em high. Let’s get rid of this crap. I got some rope if you want it! It’s the only way you can solve this sort of thing. Get ’em out.

    SEW: crap is crap is crap, and even exposing a user to this in the first place means that Google isn’t maximizing the user experience. So anything else in your typically illogical and egomaniacal rant doesn’t matter…showing the site to ANY users is wrong.

  44. I can explain the celebrity names.

    He can’t put them all out there as clients or testimonials, to protect them, but they are all beneficiaries of his amazing discovery so he wants their names associated.

    Yeah, that’s it. Totally!

  45. Cripes, I never expected Cutts to talk about this guy. One of my clients used to sell this guy’s junk (the joys of the alternative health industry)

  46. You won’t be laughing when msn search engine users like myself are still alive in 200 years time…..

  47. SCHWEET! I have always wanted to live forever in an alien cemetery. Gotta avoid that tupac kazaa hospital however, they might take away my plasma tv advanced chart though…

    ya know it’s mindless dribble like this that makes me just wonder who is writing the software to randomize jibberish keyword strings like this, and how much money they make off of idiots like this guy.

  48. SEO Honolulu, that is a nice twist. In my outrage it didn’t occur to me that these assholes who are taking advantage of the gullible masses are also gullible idiots. I’ve got to go sell this guy some number 1 placement on Google.

  49. aliencemetery.com is available for registration in case anyone was interested πŸ™‚

  50. I saw the ad and thought surely the patent must be bogus. But, amazingly, the guy does have a patent–for a magnetic ring, that is. Not an immortality device. Darn! Who doesn’t want to live forever for 3 easy monthly payments of $9.99. Operators standing by. And that’s not all…

  51. How do these people get these sites reviewed? I’ve sent numerous reinclusion requests for one of my sites in the past and never got anything from Google. It’s completely complaint with the Webmaster Guidelines.

  52. Fortunately, Alex Chiu will have all of eternity to fix this problem.

  53. Dude, I gotta get those rings.

    Who needs SEO when you can have eternal life rings. Shame on oogle for suppressing this.

  54. Matt thanks for posting about this site. You had mentioned it this weekend, but all the pretty graphics and such I didn’t have. I’ll be linking your presentation to this article so people really get an idea what you where talking about.

  55. It’s sad, but owners and webmasters actually “learn” this type of stuff at other discussion forums and SEO blogs. They do. It’s true.

    The even sadder part is that our industry allows this type of teaching to go on without saying one word to the owners of such forums and blogs. Free speech is certainly alive and well, no matter how destructive it is for the industry. This guy had to learn about this kind of spam somewhere, right? He learned it from OUR industry.

    Grant; every site I’ve ever reviewed all say they are compliant with the webmaster guidelines. πŸ™‚

  56. SearchEnginesWeb,

    A different prospective – Is not the search engines just creating a website with links to the pages for you based on the key phrase or command you use? Why shouldn’t they get to choose who they will link to on their site? I bet your standards for who you link to are higher than all the search engines.

  57. I have to agree that is pretty funny however he is using a cheap way to “syuff keywords” onto his site however you have better people that are very good at what they do and can fool the SE’s thats the people you have to go after (as if you don’t already know that!) πŸ˜‰

  58. Free speech is certainly alive and well, no matter how destructive it is

    How ironic that you would post such a statement.

    So “our industry” should be censored, correct? With no knowledge being put forth that is not approved? So who would be the Grand Inquisitor of All That Is Holy And White Hattish, doling out wisdom about what is right or wrong, determining what can and cannot be discussed? You? And should anyone disagree with this censorship, let them be excommunicated from the search engines, or perhaps banished to Supplemental Hell?

  59. Why does he keep talking about himself in the “third person?”

    “Ale Chiu” this! And “Alex Chiu” that!

  60. Why does he keep talking about himself in the β€œthird person?”

    β€œAle Chiu” this! And β€œAlex Chiu” that!

    Maybe part of immortality is transcending the grammar of “self”. πŸ˜€

  61. This is about the dumbest form of keyword spamming I have seen in a long time. I mean at least try and hide it better by pushing it off page with CSS or something. Most of the time when I see a site that is stuffing keywords, they are literally stuffing them in there visible text for everyone to read. In some occasions the image alt tags would be stuffed full of keywords, or they try and hide a bunch of text at the bottom of the site. Sad thing is I wonder how many people believe this guy about google not listing his site and end up buying the product.

  62. What is classic is that websense at work blocks that site as “tasteless”

  63. Aww Matt – can’t there be an exception for Alex? Gosh I think I had seen and laughed at his site when I still thought Excite! was awesome, dogpile was pretty neat and that new “Google” looked interesting, but nowhere near as cool as Napster.

    This guy is a historic gem! He’s got a fantastic backlink count and a nicely aged domain.

    How about a new advanced search parameter?

    spam: immortality magnets

    The spam: parameter should present a totally arbitrary & capricious version of the index with extra positive weight given to hidden text, stuffed keywords, redirects, link farms and paid links.

    It could create a whole new type of seo contest and all the blackhatters would vie for top spam: spot for viagra etc.

  64. The site links to 1for1Link.com which has very similar styling and employs exactly the same small text area in the bottom left hand corner.
    I am surprised that 1for1link.com is still indexed in Google given its nefarious linking activities.

  65. Great “extreme case” Matt but what about those of us who play by “the Google guidelines” rules and still lose 95% of our pages to supplementals?

    There is more to “showing up in Google” these days Matt and you know it, THAT is what would be more helpful to discuss.

  66. Michael wrote:

    “So who would be the Grand Inquisitor of All That Is Holy And White Hattish, doling out wisdom about what is right or wrong, determining what can and cannot be discussed? You?”

    Well, maybe not me Michael, but I can guarantee it will “not” be you either. Sorry bud. I’m not surprised you took offense by my post…. and most people reading are not surprised either. πŸ™‚ Most know there our places within our industry that are very bad stuff.

  67. I cant stop laughing at his comments…

    Put it this way: Even Kevin Trudeau’s website ‘naturalcures.com’ can be found on Google. Kevin Trudeau, the famous author of the #1 selling book ‘Natural Cures’ was not even banned by Google. Why is a small website like AlexChiu.com banned from Google? Ask yourself this question. Isn’t it strange? Why would a big guy like Google tease a small guy like Chiu? It’s because the smart people at the top know that one day Chiu’s technology will destroy their trillion dollars industry. If Chiu’s technology is not threatening, why would they ban his site? They are not afraid of Kevin Trudeau at all. But they are so afraid of Chiu. This means Chiu’s technology is truly threatening.

    Go to Google and type in ‘alexchiu.com’, and this clickable domain will not appear. More than 1 million people visited alexchiu.com since 1996. Yet it won’t appear on Google.

    Even Google is afraid of Alex Chiu. You can imagine how much the medical industry fears Alex Chiu.

    You can help Alex Chiu spread the word by adding a link to AlexChiu.com from your website. Or tell others about Alex Chiu in chat rooms or on bulletin boards. Call your friends and relatives and tell them that such a website does exist.

    Don’t let people forget this website!!

    Don’t let a big guy like Google cover your ears and eyes.

  68. Just because of this post Alexchiu.com may have been hit 5,000 more times today. He definitely should thank you.

    I also wonder if “keyword stuffing” is the ONLY reason that this site is banned from Google.

  69. This guy is a nut but people apparently want to live forever and buy his crap

    check out Martin Sargent’s Web Drifter for a good laugh at Alex’s expense
    http://revision3.com/webdrifter/foreveryoung

  70. a 50k raw text keyword list is impressive. I mean I’ve seen some stuffed content in my lifetime – but never that much.

  71. Again, this is a extreme example, I want to learn about those who play by the rules and get all their pages thrown into the supplemental trash bin. That is as close to Google turning off the switch (a ban) on a webmaster as it gets.

    Spammers do not make me laugh anymore, they get in the way of useful conversation about compliant webmastering.

  72. I read whole post and I can understand why Chiu put whole keywords on his pages if he really believes that he has something new. I don’t think that Google is scared him because if he do not put all those keywords and even with little keyword stuffing ( Chiu this Chiu that) google will not ban his site from their search engine but he was unfair to whole of us that not put whole keywords on our site and try to break through on google search engine. I think that if google make crawler that can see almost whole scams that people put on their sites (and I know that they will but when…) then all fair publishers and people will have chance to break through as they deserve. How many sites even more violate rules like Chiu-s and google doesn’t have clue about it?

  73. Aaron Pratt

    But I don’t see many supplementals on your site http://www.seobuzzbox.com/. Are talking about another site of yours?

  74. Great post.
    Now seriously, where can I get those rings? Look great and be young forever? Feng Shui Tamagotchi, here I come!

  75. It surely isn’t completely ineffective, these 8 other domains still have the text box on them, and rank for terms in the box:

    realimmortality . com
    incrediblecures . com
    eternallifedevices . com
    superiching . com
    liveforevernow . com
    achieveimmortality . com
    curecancerpill . com
    immortaldevice . com

    Screen shots and search used to find them saved on my blog:

    http://www.jlh-design.com/2007/07/getting-caught-keyword-stuffing/

  76. It surely isn’t completely ineffective, these 8 other domains still have the text box on them, and rank for terms in the box:

    That’s because Google doesn’t detect for keyword stuffing algorithmically. While it is actually a violation of terms to attempt to get better rankings that way, it doesn’t actually work, so there’s no need for Google to waste processor resources looking for them. If someone gets banned and has stuffed keywords, then either they were banned for something else, or someone reported them and they were manually reviewed.

    There are plenty of examples of sites ranking well that have similar or worse cases of misappropriate content, it’s just not the content that makes them rank well.

  77. Encouraging people to click on pay per click advertisement for snake oil products they don’t intend to buy, would also be against Google guidelines… but hey everyone needs a hobby.

  78. Most of AC’s sites are using 1998 spam methods; having found one, manually or algorithmically, surelly the other eight, with almost identical text and spam, should be found too?

    AC says “My goal is to reach 10,000 hits a day to my site. Google banned AlexChiu.com. So what you can do is add a link to liveforevernow.com on your site, which Google did not ban yet. (That comes to alexchiu.com too.) By linking to liveforevernow.com, you helped my site go up in Google’s search rank. Soon liveforevernow.com will become popular in Google. ”

    Makes finding one site a bit of a joke, really.

    Matt, I bet you regret picking on the Eternal Guy, now πŸ™‚

  79. Harith – Of course my seobuzzbox.com is not in the bin, it is a bitchy SEO blog, it gets stupid links.

    Yes, I am talking about another site.

    Now we are on the subject, is this keyword stuffing in my book review? I do use the book title a few times to let the search engines know what I am writing about. Do search engines like Google no longer require this? I know humans still do!

    Let’s hear the rules Matt and go beyond showing extreme examples!

  80. I just searched “Internal vaginal aphrodisia doping hardware” on Google and Alex Chiu appears in third position.
    So, for a while, it works πŸ™‚

  81. finding hidden text sites is easy, i could easily name a bunch of them. most of them are poorly designed and look straight from 1998, but none of them are a real threat on rankings for big key terms.

    now how about finding out the big time “deep linking to key page” via “keyword related anchor text” paid link buyers. the site looks modern, the site often has a brand name. so they must be legit right? not when the stakes are this high.

    google hasnt done so well on that one have they?

  82. Pretty funny stuff Matt, oddly he chose to blame Google over the amazing Randi Hmm http://www.randi.org/jr/053003.html

  83. Matt, did you find that site on accident, or were you a customer? Be honest!

  84. I can only imagine how many sites are not included in google due to irrational sites like this one.

  85. Dave (original)

    Apparently Google knows something that SEOs don’t.

    More like they know a LOT that SEOs don’t.

    Agree with Doug, this guys likely learnt this and a bunch of other tricks from a so-called SEO forum and/or one these SEO conferences. I would say DigitalPointless is not the forum as it’s not link spam πŸ™‚

    SEW, I think Matt was very clear that any site owner retains the right to do as they see fit to their own site. By the same token, Google retains the SAME right. Like it, or lump it!

  86. Harith – Of course my seobuzzbox.com is not in the bin, it is a bitchy SEO blog, it gets stupid links.

    Yes, I am talking about another site.

    Aaron, Supplementals aren’t really a penalty, they are due to a lack of PageRank getting to those pages. I just did a link: search on that site in Yahoo, and despite the initial semi-impressive numbers you might see, it only shows a total of 242 links when you page through them. This means that the rest of them are sitewides or near sitewides from the same domains that show in the initial 242. Except in certain instances, those extra links really won’t be worth much.

    I randomly checked 15 of those links that did show, and of those, not one was cached in Google. Pages that are not cached, or are cached but are themselves in the Supplemental index, do not pass PageRank.

    I ran a similar check on the deep links you have, and although the stats look better, with 734 results showing in the serps, I still only found 2 out of the 15 links that I checked as being cached in Google.

    See, one of the things going on here, that apparently Matt and the rest of the team don’t grasp, is that:
    a) Pages require a certain amount of PageRank to stay out of the supps
    b) PageRank is a relative quantity… the more pages there are, the more links it takes to get PageRank
    c) Therefore, the more pages factored into the equation, the harder it is to stay out of the supplementals
    d) Currently, Google is completely inundated with millions and millions of pages of non-supplemental spam, making it almost impossible for honest websites to stay out of the supps.

    Think I’m exaggerating? Here is what a quick search turned up (again, less than 5 minutes to find these examples):
    [site:thisfunds.com] 5,150 results
    [site:findlinks.eu] 7,540 results
    [site:myblogvoice.com] 39,800 results
    [site:quotaless.com] 54,000 results

    In and of themselves, each only represents a few thousand pages… but they add up. Quick.

    This issue necessitates buying links just to stay indexed in many cases… and the fact that Google chooses to focus on penalizing those who are buying links, instead of once and for all eliminating the root problem, shows just how out of whack their priorities are these days.

    Btw, I am duplicating this portion of the conversation over on Smackdown, along with cached versions of those serps, just in case they disappear.

  87. I have checked eBay and Chiu’s Immortality Rings are listed there!
    Google has webmaster guidelines but almost anythngs goes on eBay.

  88. haha god that list of keywords is massive! would’ve taken him at least a day to pump all that out…although i am now curious how targeting the term “danger from hidden protecting yourself” could seem like a good idea?

    anyways im sold… 10 rings for each finger for me please!

  89. >> I think they _want_ to act as a victim of some big conspiracy, it actually helps their publicity (or at least they think so).

    Veky, that’s exactly what they want, as it will in the New Age and Alternative Health circles. Alternative health believers, practioners, etc, etc have a huge persecution complex, and they seriously belief that Big Pharma (in league with the FCC or any other big, related organisation) is out to crush them to protect their profits. They’re all rather paranoid and most are idiots, and I’m glad I stopped doing SEO for that industry.

  90. I used to promote Alex Chius rings back in 1999 to 2000 thinking they had something to it.

    Yes- they had something to it. I found myself having a great mood and stronger endurance using the thing… but I stopped because all the other claims on the site looked like hogwash and damaged my credibility

  91. Typical Google. Missed the most important thing. It isn’t the page rank or banning. It’s the definite discovery of the magnetic monopole. This will revolutionise cosmology, and make Google’s search business look like a broken toy, compared with the business potential of snazzy new spaceships, power systems and so on… If the magnificent Mr Chui hasn’t got magnetic monopoles, then how is he getting “positive” and “negative” magnets, for each side of the body or for hands and feet, eh?

    More seriously, a helpful article. Thanks. Could also do with a CSS example of hiding keyword stuffing. I still talk to people who insist this is just fine and undetectable (e.g. using microsized fonts, or same colour foreground and background). The difference between this and Fahrner Image Replacement (and other IR techniques) could also be usefully described?

    Related, tangentially, could do with some guidance on handling typographic variations. e.g. What’s the right way to handle people searching for Gogle, Googgle, Googke, giigke, etc. I’ve seen some site admins use meta-keywords, some using keyword stuffed areas, some with pages containing links with the variants, etc. I don’t remember seeing advice about that in your blog, or the webmaster guidelines.

    Cheers, JeremyC.

  92. Just wish to mention how Google look at keword stuffing.

    Keyword stuffing

    “Keyword stuffing” refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google’s search results. Filling pages with keywords results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site’s ranking. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context.

  93. How much time will have been in order to write 53.000 and more characters?

  94. I think everybody’s missing the point… Chiu’s obviously failing here because he’s forgotten to use the terms “tiger penis” or “rhinoceros horn”…

  95. Absolutely – If people want to tout their crap then that’s up to them, however Google and other search engines have the right to penalise for manipulation of results. Cheaters never win…….. Tour de France anyone?

    btw.. I miss Igor :(… I actually visited this blog that little bit more just to see how many messages he had posted since my last visit!

  96. Oh – forgot to say.

    Matt…. I wonder if Igor has replaceable parts??? As TP says, everyone needs an Igor. πŸ˜‰

  97. Absolutely – If people want to tout their crap then that’s up to them, however Google and other search engines have the right to penalise for manipulation of results. Cheaters never win…….. Tour de France anyone?

    Watch it, Matthew. Some of us still believe the human body can produce natural synthetic testosterone. πŸ˜€

  98. Error establishing a database connection
    This either means that the username and password information in your wp-config.php file is incorrect or we can’t contact the database server at just_in_case_im_the_only_one_getting_this_error_I_hid_the_domain_name.com. This could mean your host’s database server is down.

    Are you sure you have the correct username and password?
    Are you sure that you have typed the correct hostname?
    Are you sure that the database server is running?
    If you’re unsure what these terms mean you should probably contact your host. If you still need help you can always visit the WordPress Support Forums.

    Matt, been getting this ever since the Troll saga.

  99. Matt, on a side note, why cant i find one of my favorite bands in Google?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_The.

    Can an exception be placed in googles index for when the search [the the] appears, we get links about the band The The?

  100. jake – I second that – I keep getting the same error whenever I drop by Matt’s blog.

    M

  101. AussieWebmaster

    Funny he is not on the front page of Yahoo for his title tag but what looks like one of the spawned sites is:
    http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/~csk/washington/disweb/chiu/foo2.html

  102. Well, the stuff MUST work .. they guy is probably a hundred years old and back then this kind of keyword stuffing still worked πŸ˜‰

  103. I well understand “vitality water” if say a man placed that ring on a certain appendage and went about his business. Clearly this is not a case of keyword stuffing but a matter of creative language which all of us who aspire to eternal life regularly engage in. Shame shame Matt…lololololololol

  104. I got to tell you Matt, I love your blog! This is just great stuff. I love the chuckle this gave me. Thanks! And also, ‘thanks’ for letting SEW comment. I skip all the other comments and look for what he has to say first. This stuff just makes my day. Keep up the good work!

    Has anyone ever met SEW in person? I bet he is a charater. I’d love to take him to lunch. Not to ‘change his mind’, but just for the entertainment. Maybe some of your other commenters could come along for the banter. I’m sure the results would be youtube worthy.

    Now, I’ll go read the rest of the comments.

  105. I just got my rings and man do I feel awesome, these things really work, at lunch all I ate was glass and I still feel like a million bucks.

    Afterwork, I’m going to shoot myself in the face!!!

  106. Last one to join is a rotten egg…

    http://alexchiu.com/appreciation.htm

  107. Key word placement and the amount to use is a Bitch from the dark lord himself and can be hell to try and get right. When will these clowns quit trying to fool the search engines and stop screwing it up for the rest of us honest web site owners? I know the anwser to that, “When there is no money to be made doing it”. Like that will ever happen LOL.

    Unfortunately, there will always be these buttheads trying to get the easy way what the rest of us work hard for, Unique Hits.

    I just wonder how many times the search term “Internal vaginal aphrodisia doping hardware” is ever used LMAO

    Thanks for the outlet
    J. Kelly

  108. This site is really awesome if you read the whole thing, I haven’t had this much fun since http://www.fatchicksinpartyhats.com

    From the page “ATTENTION: Gorgeouspil cannot function without the rings. So if you want to take Gorgeouspil, you need the rings.

    This pill was named ‘Gorgeous Pill’ because it turns a user prettier every time the pill was taken. The user will gradually look PERFECT, even more gorgeous than super models. You will one day reach PHYSICAL PERFECTION!!”

    Thank god for Alex Chiu…

  109. So I felt compelled to look a little further into this matter, and I found this website with a video interview with Alex. I almost peed my pants laughing, especially the part where he sings karaoke to “Forever Young” by Alphaville. I encourage you all to check it out. http://revision3.com/webdrifter/foreveryoung

  110. I find this amusing a few real alterations could make all the different for far more possible visitors… this is lame lol.

    Random words just dont work… researched phrases do… oh well

  111. Very Cool Matt,

    You managed to detect a rediculously keyword stuffed site that even a 5 year old could detect.

    But what about keyword stuffed sites that do stay on topic? Or worse, the types that put some keywords, and a huge i-frame that takes up 85% of the page to show another website, that on its own, doesn’t show up the Google SERP’s?

    Sorry for being a bit sarcastic here, but if thatΒ΄s all Google can do in relation to spam detection, then I’m not impressed.

  112. Forever Young

    You guys have Chiu all wrong, This is really legit.

    In fact he’s a nice guy, we met about 3000 years ago when I bought my set from him. Nice to see he’s still wearing his (mine is getting a little rusty though, I might have to invest in another set)

    πŸ™‚

  113. I don’t understand why some people do this. They always seems to get caught then spend too much time talking/ complaining about it on boards.

    What I really want to know is why they do it? There must be a payoff from somewhere even if it is not Google – do you know if this is the case?

  114. Sorry for being a bit sarcastic here, but if thatΒ΄s all Google can do in relation to spam detection, then I’m not impressed.

    Peter, he never said he detected it in the first place. I’m guessing he looked at it because someone emailed him the fact that good ole Alex was claiming to be banned due to a conspiracy by Google to keep people from staying young forever.

    -Michael

  115. If I were you (before the Google-shine) wears off and goes the way of Micosoft, you should manufacture and sell ‘Google Rings’. Wear one all day and night and achieve eternal SEO.

  116. Cool Matt,

    Google has has banned this guys site for keyword stuffing. I agree its only fair that you should use the right keywords for your site, but I like many that do the right thing, spammers still manage to outrank us for our relevant keywords what is google going to do to fix this problem?????

  117. I’m with Aaron Pratt. We’ve all seen the extreme examples, it would be good if some thought and attention is given to those cases where perfectly fine sites in any book still get the boot. There’s more and more popping up of late so something is definitely happening here!

  118. Ok the site is an example for keyword stuffing, but at least we donΒ΄t have to age anymore.

    But what to do with this time?

    Perhaps write a whole story with the use of all the stuffed keywords ?
    Would be great – just look at the assembled stars who would be in it.

    “After Sintra suffered from mental disorders, an anti-aging exlixier, which also prevents seasickness and led in the revolution by using 9/11 as a funny floating mattress pad and didnΒ΄t even had a hangover, when he woke up on a alien cemantary the next day.”

    Well, this doesnΒ΄t make sense but with a whole eternity, I will be successful.

  119. This was priceless! Reminded me of the old Webpagesthatsuck.com stuff from back in the day. Not just sucky design, but also sucky keyword stuffing!

  120. I bet those would go real good with my bio-magnetic toe rings. They only promised 20 years more life though, so maybe I will live forever + 20 years now.

    And he is not stuffing keywords, he is merely presenting new words and phrases for people to learn. I mean.. how many people would know what vaginal doping hardware was before reading this? I sure didn’t!

    One thing I noticed though.. on Yahoo search for “alex chiu”, his site comes in at #4….

  121. Google has has banned this guys site for keyword stuffing. I agree its only fair that you should use the right keywords for your site, but I like many that do the right thing, spammers still manage to outrank us for our relevant keywords what is google going to do to fix this problem?????

    If they were smart (and they are), nothing…you’re promoting software that violates Google’s ToS and therefore puts you in the same class as the spammers you claim outrank you.

    In fact he’s a nice guy, we met about 3000 years ago when I bought my set from him. Nice to see he’s still wearing his (mine is getting a little rusty though, I might have to invest in another set)

    I remember you! You were at Methuselah’s christening, right? You, Alex and I played 3-handed euchre until he got all angry about being banned from Israel.

    3000 later, poor Al’s still a pariah.

  122. maybe the guy is doing immoral stuff…Its hard to buy into his product offering
    but he is getting just south of 400 visitors/day..I think that is pretty good.

  123. I hope all of this is not to imply the rings don’t really work?!?!?

    If it does, umm, well,

    Never mind.

  124. I think a lot of times people get so desperate to find SOME way to rank for SOMETHING they decide to start dynamically putting keywords together. In the past it has worked for many people, and even now it can have short term results, though I think google is getting better at dealing with stuff like this by hopefully locating things that don’t make sense sematically.

  125. Matt, very impressive you rank for Alien Cemetery instantly. What a great time to live on the crawl.

  126. I was waiting for the iRings to come out, but decided I didn’t want to change service providers.

  127. Sorry Netmeg, no iRings yet, but how about an iChing? Make that a Super iChing!!!
    poking around, found a link to one of his other sites…
    http://www.superiching.com/

    I luv the web ring ad down at the bottom, above the 7,132 keywords he has listed. Now I can see why he used a text area box. At least this way though, his site managed to get a TBPR of 4. And the lesson is??? If your gonna spam, do it blatently, that why you won’t get penalized. (tongue in cheek).

  128. “dockarl Said,

    July 25, 2007 @ 1:04 am

    Well.. OBVIOUSLY the reference to an alien cemetery is NOT nonsense – he’s trying to make the point that the very existence of Alien Cemeteries PROVES beyond doubt that the device works – if only the Alien’s had access to neodymium magnets they could have avoided their cruel fate altogether ;-)”

    You’re pretty funny πŸ™‚
    ~~~~~~~~
    I’m also surprised people still use dumb old tricks.

  129. I am not sure what his intentions were to use this “SEO” method but even if the site is banned from Google, I am sure he will receive a lot of traffic with his “Immortality Device” SEO technique. I checked on Yahoo and his site is very well ranked for the query “immortality”.
    He may not sell his magnets but the result of this scam will probably be hundreds of new incoming links and a lot of new customers searching for his other products or an alien cemetery. Congratulations Chiu! πŸ™‚

  130. Hilarious! But sad too… Similar unethical “SEO” techniques make it through the algorithm all too often. This is my first time commenting, although I read your blog religiously and it is without question the most important and informative blog on search in the industry. Keyword stuffing has been the bane of the search industry for as long as I’ve been optimizing (at least 6 years at this point). Unfortunately, I find that in certain industries sites seem to squeeze through the algorithm at a higher rate than others – why I don’t know – or maybe it’s just that I notice it more in certain industries because there aren’t as many good, nonspammy sites that rank because the good, honest, ethical ones aren’t lying or buying their way into enough PR to compete.

    For example, lately I’ve been spending a lot of time in in the addiction field, and I’ve found hidden text, hidden links, and keyword stuffing in far too many of the top 30 results for some pretty darn big terms. One egregious example would be rel=”nofollow”>this site. WOW… I mean…well…WOW. That’s all I can really think to say. How something like this could have a pr5, count as HUGELY relevant backlinks to the site that these “almost completely” hidden links link to, and this entire hugely spammy site and it’s whole bad neighborhood can rank top 10 for major terms blows my mind. Even the hidden links themselves are keyword stuffed… Matt, I know that you and many of your colleagues at Google don’t have time to deal with things like this – it’s all too easy from the depth of your blog to think that you can just sit around and filter spam and blog all day every day, there’s just that little detail, HAVING A REAL JOB AT GOOGLE, that gets in the way I imagine – but seeing things like this, or a site with a pr7 that the hidden, keyword stuffed links link to whose entire list of backlinks come from things like this or paid links (I actually like the site that they link to, although the techniques are still mighty questionable) blows my mind. I believe there is a need for certain things to be manually removed or penalized when they harm the quality of the index as badly and their effect it as far reaching as something like this. If the algorithm can’t get things this yet, (and it’s got to be difficult to tighten it to the point that it can do things like this and not hurt the sites that are playing by the rules – what is the “magic formula” for the difference between background color and font color, what is the “magic density” of words that constitutes stuffing? I guess we just have to use our eyes for the time being.

    I’ve seen Google’s algorithm change over the years in ways that I like and ways that I don’t in its implementation of filters to get rid of crap in the index, however overall great progress has without question been made. Nevertheless, I still can’t understand for the life of me how a site that uses techniques like this or a site to which it links that violates the guidelines because it does link building of this sort, show in the index with relatively high PR and great rankings in the SERPS. It very well may be that I’m the first person to ever bring this to Google’s attention, but I highly doubt it. A site that is that visible, with SERP results in a highly searched industry that are as good as this site has, I believe demonstrates a significant problem with Google’s ability or choice (I don’t know which it is) to remove offending websites from the index.

  131. Alex Chiu may have just found net immortality after this post, Matt.

  132. jake,

    Just so you know, the query [the the] works on Yahoo Search.

    The former VP of Eng at Inktomi was a huge fan. πŸ™‚

    Chad

  133. Looks like that site in particular should be banned. I noticed a Real Estate Site in my area owned by a agent who does lots of business, but she has to have about 300 keywords.

  134. Ok,

    Maybe I am just stupid. But would his site be relevant to people SEARCHING for “Alex Chiu”?

  135. Whoops, left the final quotes out (6 years of web work have sure paid off), sorry about that… let’s give it another shot… http://www.helpaddicts.com/resources.html – keyword stuffing within hidden links within a keyword stuffed spam ridden site with good pr and good rankings

    regards

  136. Great. You showed us a ridiculous page. Now show us how pages as bad as this, as well as pages 25% as guilty as this, get reduced from your index. Make an example of this guy, and I’ll show you 3 that get away with it. I don’t feel good about this tar and feathering… Good PR I guess, but I reject it. I also don’t feel good that my completely relevant site – although only a year old, but pretty much the leader in my industry – was beat out by at least 7 pages full of amazon links, craigslist posts (really… Craigslist???), and shopping portals. People look for my material, but don’t find it, because the SEO game overshadows relevancy, and it’s going to take me BIG money and LOTS of time to help YOU be relevant.. Time for an all-knew algorithm. Hire more interns or something to do the real work. very shady. very yellowbook.com -ish.

  137. Heard the story of the Man who got arrested for selling eternal youth medicine? When police checked his records they found that he was a repeat offender, arrested on same charges in 1671, 1692, 1720, 1731, 1734, 1757, 1812, 1847, 1868, 1913, 1922, 1946, 1953….

  138. Dave (original)

    Chad, you are ass-u-ming that what YOU see in the SERPs is the whole story, when it’s likely VERY far from it. I would bet the ratio of spammy pages (like the one shown and less) penalized/banned to non-spammy ones in the SERPs is around 100:1

    Just because you don’t/can’t see something, don’t ass-u-me it’s not happening.

  139. It REEEEEKS of Terminator!
    These learning search algorythms should be stopped NOW. We are all in peril. The world is about to be controlled by computers. Heaven help us all.
    RUN!..RUN!..RUN from the fear of Google A.K.A. ‘Cyberdyne Systems’

    Or _______learn to adapt and go with the flow.
    Rules are there for us simple people who only know 11 words. and our Keywords are even more limited. ::) (foureyes)

  140. hi matt,
    but if i am using some keywords may be 1 or 2 lines relating to that page on the top of the page is that also comes in spamming?
    like i do in my webpage .
    http://www.jainsachin.com

  141. Dave (original)

    Yes, it is spam as per the guidelines.

  142. I would bet the ratio of spammy pages (like the one shown and less) penalized/banned to non-spammy ones in the SERPs is around 100:1

    Dave (original) – you need to learn to educate yourself some more before spouting off the way you do. Seriously.

    Trust me, I speak from actual research here. Pick a commercial query, medium range difficulty. Set your results at 100 per page, and go through all of the serps that Google will show you. On average, on any given day, Google is returning anywhere from 8% to 15% spam results.

    I’m not talking nit picky crap that “I’m going to save souls through white hat” evangelist types spew daily… I’m talking issues like I already pointed out already, and other variations. Stuff much worse than what Matt showed.

  143. Is there a keyword density level at which google marks a page as being “keyword stuffed?” I know the advice is to write it for humans with zero consideration for search engines but I’m curious if there is a certain level, say at 30% density that a page is flagged.

  144. Dave (original)

    Michael VanDeMar, perhaps you should learn how to research properly before retorting with your factoids. Even if you spent 12hrs a day for 6 months solid, you wouldn’t get a big enough sample size to make a meaningful statement.

    You obviously can’t comprehend the sheer number of possible search terms and results.

    On top of that, you fail to comprehend that many spammy pages WON”T be seen as they are either banned, on page x, or have has the spam elements discounted.

  145. Dave (original)

    Jake, *only* Google knows IF there is a KWD threshold.

  146. Michael VanDeMar, perhaps you should learn how to research properly before retorting with your factoids. Even if you spent 12hrs a day for 6 months solid, you wouldn’t get a big enough sample size to make a meaningful statement.

    Dave, considering any research I do is more than what your ass is willing to do, then it is infinitely more meaningful that what you come up with.

    You can spout your random unsupported numbers all you want, you’re still wrong. When I said, “Pick a query…”, and explained to you how to look for yourself, I did not subliminally mean, “please come back and spew more made up crap without even bothering to look”.

    On top of that, you fail to comprehend that many spammy pages WON”T be seen as they are either banned, on page x, or have has the spam elements discounted.

    What the hell are you talking about? If it’s in the serps then it’s not banned. When I say “returning results”, do you understand what that means?

  147. Dave (original)

    Michael VanDeMar, it’s quite clear you have no idea on how to research or produce meaningful statics and rely far too heavily on your emotions and factoids.

    What the hell are you talking about? If it’s in the serps then it’s not banned. When I say β€œreturning results”, do you understand what that means?

    I see you also have issues with written English. You really should calm yourself before posting, so as not to keep making a fool of yourself.

    Let me spoon feed you just one of the many parts you didn’t grasp;

    “many spammy pages WON”T be seen as they are either banned..”

    Now tell me, IF Google’s results are so bad, why are they still THE most popular in the World?

  148. Poor fellow,he should read matts’ enough to avoid unwanted risk

  149. Wow. I think Chiu won the day. How much traffic must he have gotten out of this? Google can ban me any day if Matt Cutts will blog about it.

  150. Alien cemetary eh. Hmm…

  151. Yeah, but check out his Alexa rating since this post has gone viral.

    http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?q=&url=http://alexchiu.com/eternallife/

    Traffic Rank for Alexchiu.com:
    Yesterday 12,494
    1 wk. Avg. 39,780
    3 mos. Avg. 532,294
    3 mos. Change 43,521

    Not too bad of a jump. Went from 500k to top 13k in about a week. He is probably wondering where all the traffice came from. LOL.

  152. Yahoo and Msn don’t seem to mind the keeword stuffing and both have Mr Chiu’s site in their index. Anyhow Alex Chiu is now so famous, he doesn’t need to be included in Google. πŸ™‚

  153. Hahaha! That is pretty funny Matt! Nice article. If the owner of the website is an immortal then he shouldn’t worry about things. It’s not like Google will stay number 1 for ever. I mean yeah okay, G is strong, VERY strong but all it takes to come up with a Google killer is detication of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, a small garage to work at and a revolutionary idea πŸ˜‰

  154. It’s a good thing that the SE catches sites like this to ban. It would be a joke to find such a site on page 1 of my search.

  155. Well it seems that keyword stuffing does work: he got great exposure on a very popular SEO blog. Just imagine how much work it would take to get this exposure as a good example πŸ™‚

  156. Way to go Matt. that post had me rolling on the floor laughing. I can’t believe that guy was so blatantly obvious about keyword stuffing. Apparently he’s not so bright to stuff the page with CSS altered H1 tags turned the color of the background of the page.

  157. I guess some people just dont stay up with whats good and bad.

  158. wow..this is textbook keyword stuffing….didn’t even do a decent job of hiding it

  159. Wow.. Plain stupidity in action, several reason why this page should not be in Google’s search result, because we have stupid people like Alex Chiu that sells things like this who can’t create a decent site, oblivious about the Google’s webmaster guidelines and because some people might actually buy that thing. But I have to admire him for having his web page stated here.. =P

  160. I don’t agree with google in policing the internet world, even though you are providing a great example of keyword stuffing WOW what a crime. Any publisher has complete right to his content, it is his content after all not google’s. It would be great if google can provide a spam score to its SERP and still display the content. I might be interested in looking up info about alex chiu. By delisting him from google index you are delisting a content that might be relevant to my query. Do you have the right to advise me that the content might contain spam? YES! do you have the right to totally hide that content from me? not sure about that …

  161. I had been wondering where I could get some “internal vaginal aphrodisia doping hardware”, that stuff is hard to come by these days.

    Man the view source on that page is awesome! im suprised people are still using techniques that were pretty much deemed a waste back in 1996 – here we are 11 years later and people are still using the same old garbage…

  162. Dave (original)

    Danny, yes site owners can do anything they like with their site(s). But, so can Google do what they like with theirs. Common sense, no?

    I also don’t believe for a second that Google ban or even penalize most spammy sites as Google always puts it’s users 1st. However, if they choose to make an example of someone, or they cross a spam threshold and banned, I’m all for it.

  163. What a wounderful Idea but how to protect the honest webmaster?

  164. So his website is actually banned on Google… whereas traffic to his site pertaining to this subject has probably increased 10 fold. lol. An alternative effective means indeed.

  165. Is there a set ratio of keywords to content?

  166. I think the did wanted to be banned just to act as a victim. I think it’s a marketing trick..

  167. My favorite ‘keyword’ line: “jesus cheat doom gengis khan 2012 apocalypse destruction blvd”. That’s NOT a street I’m particularly interested in walking down after dark… πŸ˜‰

  168. Just for the record I believe he embedded 6906 words which took up 64 pages in Microsoft Word. It seems he likes the shotgun approach to keywords and I may just save that keyword list if I get desperate for traffic.

  169. This website – http://www.fashion-bag.com/ is under construction, but Google ranks it #2 on keyword “fashion handbags”. Why? Is it because the domain contains keywords? If so, it seems that Google pays too much attentions to keywords in domains.

  170. Sorry, it’s actually ranked #1 using a Chinese browser.

  171. rotfl … I just wonder what’s gonna happen if one wearing these marvellous immortality-handcuffs is using to sleep e.g. with both hands under the head? Probably such person is gonna be blessed and enter Nirvana (or going to the alien cemetary in a flash?)

    @Danny D: I don’t agree with you, even though I sometimes also don’t agree with Google ;-). They are not a public institution or funded by taxes, so that you could claim what they show or not. They are a company, offering a service which they shape according to what they think meets best with what people want. Where’s your problem?

  172. Matt, are you sure this is keyword stuffing–or is it vandalism? I had something similar happen to a noncommercial site of mine. I happened to be looking at the HTML file of the home page one day and noticed some text at the bottom–something about porn. I have no idea how it got there, but I noticed that my PR had changed from 5 to 4 (although this could have been coincidental). I assumed someone had hacked into my site and left it. I deleted it and reloaded the home page. (Couple of months later, PR is still at 4.)

    Is there anyone who still believes that pasting one instance of a random keyword on his site will make the site appear in searches for that keyword? I.e., having a thousand high-traffic keywords appear once each on your home page will do nothing to raise your position when those keywords are searched.

    Since the list includes a lot of random stuff that no one would be interested in, I’m inclined to think it’s spam and that someone hacked in and left it there. Why would they do it? I don’t know–malice, to get the site dropped from the SEs? Or just for the hell of it, because they can? That’s what hackers do. Whatever the reason, it makes more sense than to assume the owner put it there.

  173. If you stuff keywords often, there’s a threshold. And there are alternative ways to achieve the same goal.

    Every seo lives by doing some stuffing.

  174. Dave (original)

    Every seo lives by doing some stuffing

    Wrong! The BEST person to write a content page is a person who knows the subject and writes *naturally* for humans ONLY. Any so-called SEO using keyword stuffing is doing their clients a disservice and is contributing to the SEO industries already black-eye!

  175. Dave (original), just out of curiosity, which website is yours, if I may ask?

  176. http://www.google.com (he wrote it himself.) πŸ˜‰

  177. That ring seems like a brass knuckle to me.. Buy that ring, wear it and punch him on his face for spamming search engines lol..

    BTW his procedure seems to work… look he got featured here at mattcutts.com and will be getting good traffic πŸ˜‰ may be some of them would have actually bought the ring lol.. You never know..

  178. internet is getting really polluted alright.

  179. Dave (original)

    Michael VanDeMar, sorry don’t share my website URL on forums, blogs etc. I tend to call a spade a spade and spammers hate that and try all do sorts in their frustration πŸ˜‰

    What I will say is this, those who need to find any topic of my chosen website subject, can do so easily, thanks to Google πŸ™‚

  180. Yeah, http://www.google.com is everywhere. πŸ˜€

  181. Apparently, immortality is easier to figure out than Google’s algorythm.

  182. I am really, really , really glad that this “Stay Physical Young Forever”-site is not present in Google. Not only that this main headline, “Stay Physical Young Forever”, can be proven to be a lie. This site is sooooooooo incredibly ugly.

    I found that most sites that try stupid or even black-hat SEO tactics, are simply ugly and hurt your eyes. It is probably not a coincidence that those same sites are trying to sell the most unwanted garbage. Yes, that alone makes it easier to detect them. Glad their operators are not too smart.

    Good job google.
    Adios

  183. LOL, thanks for the laugh. Its funny the guy wasn’t even smart enough to hide the damn things!

  184. Dave (original), do you actually believe the stuff you spew…?

    Dave (original) Said,
    So these sites that say they have a penality for no reason (impossible BTW) want better SERP positions so they can be found, but are NOT willing to post their URL along with PROOF of a penality.

    That sais it all πŸ˜€

    But if you don’t feel like posting, then of course there’s a legitimate reason. Right. That actually does say it all.

    Ok, actually, I could care less about what websites you own. I’m pretty sure from what you post you actually have little experience with them anyways. My underlying question is, who are you? What other identities do you post under?

  185. Actually, Mikey, Dave knows that of which he speaks. He just doesn’t reveal much because it’s not like posting his links in forums or blogs will bring him the type of traffic that he wants…and yes, I know who he is, I know of his site, and it does rank on the first page for some rather competitive stuff.

    His reasons for not revealing it are because he’s something of an SEO community pariah…he’s gone at just about everyone who has any knowledge of SEO (including me) at one time or another, and that’s understandable. But if he wanted to reveal his site and back up everything he said about how to rank on the first page of various terms, he could.

    I’m not going to tell you what it is either, because I’m not going to subject Dave to the same ritualistic BS that all “SEOs” would subject him to (unless he wants to forward the inquiries on to me and I’ll answer them in my unique spamfighting way. πŸ™‚ )

    But he’s got experience, and he could chew you up and spit you out if he wanted to.

  186. Dave (original)

    Thanks for the praise MW Adam, coming from yourself it DOES mean a lot!

    Dave (original), do you actually believe the stuff you spew…?

    Oh yes, without doubt. As they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. My site ranks quite nicely for many terms I target and I have yet to EVER use any SEO or SEO forum to ask questions on my site. If I ever do, I wouldn’t be so silly as to NOT let those trying to help know my URL and you’ll be the last to know πŸ™‚

    Now, have you anything of value to write, or are you simply trolling?

  187. Actually, as I stated, I was curious as to who you are, not about which site is yours. Still am, as a matter of fact.

    … and he could chew you up and spit you out if he wanted to.

    Seriously, I doubt that. Irrelevant to the question though.

  188. Dave (original)

    Michael, you flip-flop around a lot! I’m Dave (original) to you and that’s all you NEED to know πŸ™‚

    So, I’ll repeat my question: do you have you anything of value to write (or ask for that matter), or are you simply trolling?

    BTW, I wouldn’t chew you up as you would leave a bitter taste in my mouth πŸ™‚

  189. It’s not that important. It had to do with me wanting to perhaps engage in a discussion with you in a forum other than Matt’s blog, since it would probably get heated, and I try and stay polite as possible here out of respect to Matt.

    Doesn’t matter though, as I’ve lost interest in you, and know all I need to. Enjoy your day.

  190. Dave (original)

    I hate to disappoint you, but I don’t debate trolls and I never had any interest in you. Have a nice life.

  191. I never had any interest in you

    Then why all the replies?

    Enjoy your snipering from behind your anonymity, may it serve you well. Peace out.

  192. Dave (original)

    I mistakenly kept thinking you weren’t trolling. I should have known better based on your track record.

    BTW, whether a person uses their real name, or a user name is never of concern to those without bad intent.

  193. It’s interesting how Alexes neo-militant site creates so much noise, “naturally”.

    Aside from the keyword stuffing pages which on the surface looks much like those “pre-sell” ad-words / clickbank / advertiser pages. His intended priority is undoubtedly the sale of his products.

    These sites seldom outrank proper research orientated & good value sites.

    Seldom, but not never.

    This happens with Google as it happens on the other platforms, undue sites sometimes get a lucky breaks, due the the emotive nature of their content.

    Providing that Alex Chiu fixes (at some stage) his obvious guideline misdemeanors, all historical external links and posts gained in the fray will remain. (the link noise)

    Bigger blogs, posts and the many minion blogs that may report/ support / syndicate on this post content. (Despite “SEO” efforts in the advocation of rel=nofollow “webmasters do what they want on their own sites”)

    What I find “interesting” is that when high profile blogger takes an interest (like Matt’s post here.) Chiu’s site may inadvertently be promoted to a an undue ranking status.

    I would imagine that this is also difficult issue to algorithmically resolve, given the nature of “natural” links being so “natural”.

    So if Google does not implement a specific, “thou shalt not rank ever” penalty on the site. I don’t see why Chiu’s site won’t at some stage re-enter the index and rank “normally” based on the “authoritative, natural” links (advocated by many in other “SEO” posts).

    Is this another “hijack” of the “social media” cycle by Alex, or is this just another self serving webmaster that got lucky with a post from Matt ? anyones guess? (I suspect the latter).

    The former perhaps be a semi valid “SEO” strategy for “sales” orientated sites. (hummm)

    Facts are….

    According to alexa.com graphs, there is a massive traffic spike to alexchiu.com (thanks Matt).

    End of facts….

    Yahoo and Live still rank Alexes site well for “Immortality Device” (niche as it is)

    So again I wonder, will Google re-rank this site if it’s re-built following the “webmaster guidelines”.?

    Probably

    If alexchiu.com starts spamming the hell out of Googledex will Google ban all “legitimate” sites that decided to post about a post by a prominent poster and did not re=nofollow “webmaster guidelines”.

    Then again “Google reserves the right to do what we think is best”. Granted, it is Google’s index.

    Wikipedia has more on Chiu:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Chiu

    ;;;;—-;;;;—-;;;;;—-;;;;;

  194. Oops! that was a bit of a flaming comment. (not the intention) merely my humble observations.

  195. Dude that is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. Way to go Alex Chiu for helping to make the internet less of a safe place for children.

  196. Interesting indeed?

    Why? one year latter is “the said spam” being talked about, See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Chiu

    Why did, Google drop the Alex Chui’s site in August 2006 from their search engine?

    Prior to the Google Ban, Alex Chui did not use the texraea spam in question.

    However, on November 8th 2006 he did use the 55K wording with white text on white background,

    later on November 15th the site changed it to the texraea you see today.

    So Google who does no evil, why did you ban the site?

  197. This is sick!

  198. Haha great. your articles cheers me up here at work as a bored SEO Consultant πŸ˜‰

  199. Dave (original)

    So Google who does no evil, why did you ban the site?

    Here’s a hint, read Matt’s post.

  200. Disappointed Customer

    God, you have ruined his SEO for Internal vaginal aphrodisia doping hardware. It’s all over the Internet now. How is a girl supposed to buy one if she has to wade 315 bloody references to it?

    I bet if it was Internal vaginal aphrodisia doping software you would not have said a word.

    Men!

  201. Hey Dave, Here’s a hint read my fist post?

    Alex Chui’s site was not banned in August 2006 for the textarea spam, that spam was added later in November 2006 “guessing” as a form of retaliation for being banned by Google as early as 2004 according to Alex.

  202. Dave (original)

    Hey Meow Meow, If you don’t mind I’ll believe Matt and Google over your β€œguessing” and a con man who preys on the weak and uninformed πŸ™‚

  203. Very funny! Alex Chiu.

    Poor people actually wearing those rings… Prob. same ppl that were Kline underwear. =)

  204. Haha that was priceless Matt πŸ˜€

  205. Alex Chiu’s forum ( http://idu.16.forumer.com/ ) actually uses AdSense, which means there’s a link to Google on his forum. I wonder of Google gives itself a bad neighborhood penalty for that.

  206. Dave (original)

    So following that logic, all ads that show on his site in AdSense should be treated as bad neighborhoods???

    You MUST link TO a bad neighborhood to be associated with one, not the other-way-round, for obvious reasons.

  207. CERTAINTY OF LINK TARGET BEING PART OF A BAD NEIGHBORHOOD (by my standards, not Google’s):

    When it’s not known whether a link from a bad neighborhood is an ad placed by the webmaster of the linked website, then the link is a “very, very weak indicator” of the target being part of a bad neighborhood. The target website shouldn’t be penalized.

    When it is known that a link from a bad neighborhood is an ad placed by the webmaster of the linked website but it was placed via a service that makes it difficult to select which websites the ad is placed on, then the link is a “very weak indicator” of the target being part of a bad neighborhood. The target website should be warned that they may be penalized if they don’t have their ad removed from that website. (I believe this means that if I were Yahoo, I’d warn Google).

    Anyone who knowingly bought ad space from a search engine spammer or other seedy website should AT LEAST be warned that they WILL be penalized if it’s not removed.

    I wanted to use AdWords as an example of a popular internet ad placement service that doesn’t allow enough control over where ads are placed, but I can’t research it because every page I try for AdWords information redirects me to “my” campaign management page even though I don’t use AdWords!

  208. Dave (original)

    Anyone who knowingly bought ad space from a search engine spammer or other seedy website should AT LEAST be warned that they WILL be penalized if it’s not removed.

    It would be better to NOT bite off ones nose to spites one face. SEs should (and likely do) simply discount any advantage any such ad may give the site.

    No use penalizing a site/page that is of use to someone who searches, when SEs can simply discount most spam.

  209. “actually uses AdSense, which means there’s a link to Google on his forum”

    That is a javascript linking, so shouldn’t be a problem.
    Right Matt? πŸ™‚

  210. Regardless of the demerits of Chiu’s site, I wonder if the reason it was banned was because it was showing up too high in the SERPS, and that was the only way to knock it down?

    Google’s algorithm is far from perfect, or blank sites would not show up at #2 for “hand bags”, nor would sites that were last updated in 1996 show up at #3 for “meta tags”.

  211. Dave (original)

    If the SERPs which it was ranking for were relevant, I doubt it.

    I have never heard anyone claim Google is perfect. When you are at the very top, people like compare them with perfection for some silly reason.

  212. Matt:
    Yes, Its great Article and highlighted good SEO point.

  213. What a great site or blogg not sure what to callit really

    I am newish to all this SEO so still learning.

    If google updates so quickly why can’t you see the effects of a change for weeks. I have added several pages to my site and they do not seem to appear at all, although google seems to spider it?

    If your site was registered before I think you could be getting some form of penalty from google not sure if this is the case.

    Also I wonder if nayone can explain if content is key how the big index sites seem to do so well in google?

  214. Most seem to get away with it. Though most don’t seem to go to the extreems that Alex was doing on his site.

    It is kind of funny though that Google made a point of going after Real Estate websites which had Recip links organized into state pages back in April and May, and I can still go out and find some very well ranking (in Google) Real Estate sites with a state page directory right at the bottom of their main page, along with 50 to a hundred Recip links.

  215. Sir Matt,

    Nice post, I bet he’s out of his mind, what does vaginal doping hardware and freddie mercury doing in his list of keywords?

  216. Good Day Matt

    Great post. Scarey stuff. Amazing what some idiots will do.

  217. I have done most things when it comes to search positioning, including, in my first forrays into the web, keyword stuffing in various ways. It works for a short while and then you’ll disappear… Not great long term strategy.

    Since those early days, I have progressed through more sensible methods and now the only “SEO” I perform is letting the search engines know my site is there. I concentrate on content, and that seems to work – in particular with Google, who are increasing the rankings of many of my sites quite regularly, and finding my new content extremely quickly.

    This has taken me around 4 years to perfect, and it doesn’t come easily – new webmasters need to take heed: if you’re thinking long term, concentrate on content – the hits and search rankings will follow.

    The bottom line is this – if it ain’t worth promoting, don’t bother with SEO.

    Immortality indeed.

  218. Lol. Those keywords gave me some laugh. I did buy those rings….Well,not buy. I got 4 pair for free. They do something to you. I had nightmares every time I was wearing them. Haven’t used them in 3 years. I do remember him makin that statement. It didn’t make sense to me at that time(neither many of his claims..)

    About keyword stuffing. I would really like to know how many keywords are too many keywords.Also,it may be easier to control with html site. I’ve seen sites at 10 pages long with keywords stuffed over and over. They seem to do quite well. You can’t do it with flash sites. I am glad to put 2-3 keywords there. Maybe google should give extra credits to flash sites,to help them rank?

  219. While I understand the reasoning for not completely disclosing the maximum thresholds for keyword stuffing, etc. it would help those of us who are honest website owners trying to create a site that is competitive, but not excessive.

    IMO, its a shame to see good quality sites built by hard working individuals be out ranked by senseless garbage. I’m sure it also probably makes some people feel as though they have to incorporate shady tactics to stay alive in the SERPS.

  220. To me it’s like this. Hard to get keywords are like hot to get girls. Forgetaboutit …at first at least. There will always be 100 other guys with more money, bigger ..muscles, better looks, etc in line before you. However, if you can find a nice looking yet UNDISCOVERED keyword that people are searching for you can slide smooth up in there without a problem. It takes a bit of brains, creativity, and patience to find those diamonds in the rough but in the final analysis it’s well worth it.

    So what is the moral of this story? Don’t try to cheat your way to the top to be right next to that honey everyone’s tying to get by doing illegal things (like selling drugs , keyword stuffing, etc) because everyone knows that in the end, the bad guys go to jail. So don’t be envious of those cheats who find themselves on page 1 today, sooner rather than later they’ll be in SE hell as sure as I write this.

  221. Lol, you may have guessed that I’ve been catching up with your Blog today Matt as I’ve been so busy of late and not had time to read. This one is just hillarious. What a goon, presume you were not tempted to put in an oreder? πŸ˜‰

  222. The really sad thing about hidden text, IMO, is that usually there are really simple ways in which you could legitimately add that the required text and keywords to a page. After all, if you want that page to be interpreted about subject x, then surely it doesn’t take a Charlie Gordon experience to realise you could actually write a useful page on subject x?

  223. Dang, if only Tupac would have know about those rings. Sad.

  224. I visited AlienChiu.com and read his description of his products and his philosophies. To me, he sounds like a 7 year old kid. He seems to think like how a 7-8 years old kids thinks. Hope at the age of 70-80 years, he would start thinking like a 20-21 year old man and would not get excited on his stupid inventions and ridiculous philosophies.

    As Alien Chiu claimed on his website, if he is really talked about in TVs and Radios then I really wonder why people can’t see his under developed brain.

    Now about Google’s banning of his website, Google should do it to retain the quality & integrity of its search engine, which is best in the world (far better than Yahoo as per my experience) and to teach such people ethics.

    Thank you for reading my comment.

  225. Google banned Alex’s site BEFORE he added keyword stuff. He added keywords in order to catch more visitors after google censured his site.

    by the way, I wear alex chiu’s rings and footbraces since 3 years ago, and I am sure they really work.

  226. Hello, Mr. Matt

    I have a question in the Google Webmaster Forum on my site, someone is telling me that maybe Google sees my Category Cloud like “keyword Stuffing”, Is it true?

    I really appreciate your answer

    regards

  227. Hi
    had an idea, what about creating the page with all disallowed technics put in pleace and big writing – Do any of this and you are out from google – as an example. It would be a good test for all the search engines to see if the sites gets recognized and you could direct your clients to it to explain some of the myths.
    It could be fun if people would contribute their ideas and have some fun with it.Thinking abou it I may set one up.

  228. The best way to play with Google is to just play by the rules.

  229. Is keyword stuffing automatically detected by Google?

  230. Is keyword stuffing automatically detected by Google?

  231. Thanks for the article.

    I have never seen that many keywords in one place before. It looks wrong.
    Is there a place that has the sites that have been blacklisted. How many keywords is considered too many.

    Have an exseollent 2008

  232. @hoayi
    automatically hmm i don’t think so

  233. Ah, come on. I don’t see anything wrong with this. After all, if I had a chance to be immortal, I would be willing to forgive the fact that a totally unrelated search yielded a chance to buy this wonderful, highly efficacious device from a brilliant man who most assuredly is not a crank living in under the freeway.

    Just what is Google trying to hide? Is Google in the pocket of Big Reason? Inquiring minds wanna know…

  234. I hate seeing people abuse web development like that, it’s pathetic and desperate. They’ve no right to appear on search engines and nor do any like it.

  235. Actually, this page now ranks #4 for Alien Cemetery (make that number 3 after my post). Ahhh, the power of comments.

  236. It offends me that this page is now ranking for “alien cemetary”. That just pushes down all of the sites of those of us who run legitimate alien cemetaries.

    In all seriousness, this page did show up for “keyword stuffing”, which I am thrilled with, as I needed something for a presentation I’m doing tonight at Columbia. Even though I’m sure you’re not reading this, a belated 10-month old thanks, Matt πŸ™‚

  237. I ran into this problem with google before on another page, its not worth the headache trying to get back on, just play by the rules and you can still rank fine.

  238. I actually don’t know that why Google has banned Alex Chiu’s but one thing i know that this site is getting extra publicity, and so the Google fails to achieve the goal for which it has banned the site. This site is getting more public due to this and if this goes on then certainly it will not need any search engine to be visible. Thus people searching net will surely be misguided and this will be only because of this publicity, even i am also indulging myself in this act.

  239. This is an awesome example of keyword stuffing. However, it does beg the question of whether there will be a later announcement about a Matt Cutts Alien Cemetary. πŸ˜€

    I wonder how many people actually search for an alien cemetary, happen upon this Website and say to themselves, “Hey, I want to live forever … I’ll give this a whirl.”

    I am scaring myself now, but I had to know what the US Patent and Trademark Office had on file for number 5,989,178. I learned that you can even wear these on your feet! πŸ˜€

  240. I see the site’s indexed, keyword stuffing and all.
    http://www.google.com/search?q=site:alexchiu.com+plasma&filter=0

  241. Interesting text, keyword are never been such a good area for me.Magnetic devices, I hope someone did not buy that.Great blog, bookmarked!

  242. I think the mindset these guys have is to hit hard and ride it out as long as it last while knowing all the time it is only going to be temporary. As soon as they get “discovered” most of the already have another site almost completed to take its spot. I could be wrong but I just don’t see them with any long term marketing goals with this strategy. It is sad, really but they must be making some money at it or why would they be doing it? What can we do to help keep these sites to a minimum, that is the question.

  243. Why would I want to rank high for a nonsense/nonrelevant keyword? People are often running after visitors who don`t buy their stuff. This way, they will get banned by Google and will not sell what they want to sell. So, the best is to think twice and use only relevant keywords in original articles/blogposts. If I am looking after “immortality” and Google refers me to a site where I see something else, I will do only one thing: exit the site.

  244. While browsing through a thread on Digital Point today I came across this guy trying to promote his newly released Web directory. After visiting the site, I realized that the directory barely had a set of guidelines that the owner adheres to. A well organized picnic of keyword stuffing in title and description(…) The guy seemed to be approving every single site without any reconsideration whatsoever. I just made a post in the thread and added a link to this page …It’s unfortunate how so many people act on ignorance. However, it’s even more upsetting when people get to make money by “selling” links…no review involved, no service involved, no values involved!

  245. A couple of things:

    Why is he now in Google?
    Why is his Page Rank 5?!

    And if anyone would like to see this guys visitor/counter report then I’ve found it here: http://extremetracking.com/open?login=fsadfs5

    Somehow he averages 3379 visitors per Month! And his top keyword is ‘and’ – (no idea)

    Jon

  246. That’s Good if google punishes these spammers. BTW they(alexchiu) have created a new site
    http://jesusisfiction.com/

  247. I’m just kind of surprised that anyone out there with the level of sophistication necessary to find the ‘on’ button of a computer, and the intelligence to figure out how to use a keyboard, would actually go looking for a site looking to ‘sell eternity’. Ha ha.

  248. The alien cemetery is the best one. The things people search for is a trip.

  249. I love the randomness of the keywords. Seems calculated, I think he was more or less testing google to see if it would take it down.

  250. I was about to write an article on how search engine companies advertise “we don’t use black hat seo techniques… we only use the best practices and white has seo” as a way to scare potential customers away from other companies. I laughed thinking, who even uses black hat/keyword stuffing here in 2010. The search engines caught on right away 10 years ago back when it was first abused.

    My friend bought a prime domain name and got 1st page positioning in for his targeted results of over 25 million. Then he had his SEO and site redone by this company named 3prime. 3prime stole a design I worked hard on then applied keyword stuffing to the footer of the site. It wasn’t long before my friend’s site was banned from Google. I’m just wondering how long the ban will last. =D

  251. You are right. But in India I see most of webmasters stuff keyword on site. Google prefer keyword density between 2 to 7 percentage. That’s right but in google.co.in’s first page I always see site with stuff keywords and more than 7% density. They are top in google search and getting lot of visitors everyday.

    Sometimes nothing found on that page but they are on top in google. Why ?

    As First thing is Page Rank and Hyper Text Matching Analysis in Google but Users don’t care about this. They need what they type in google search.

    I like Google a lot. I wish to say something that Google should improve the search quality because sometimes User won’t find what he needs. Other side, The content is available on other site but that sites are on 3rd, 4th page and Most users search and click on first page.

    Thanks

  252. That’s crazy. It might go over well with the search engines, but people – who are of course the ultimate users – can and do get turned off.

  253. Classic! This is so obviously stuffing. However, it would be nice to know what the actual threshold is for stuffing in terms of titles, h1/h2, description or keyword density. I know we recognize spam when we see it (other people’s spam).

  254. Now this is clearly an unethical SEO strategy and seems to be blatantly obvious that this type of black-hat strategy does not follow the Google Webmaster Quality guidelines http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66358

    But what about placing a relevant description of the products categories your company carries on your site that is not your meta description. This would be something the viewer could read at the top of the page that describes the type of products a company carries using their customer’s search terms. I would assume this is abiding by the guidelines as long as this is readable, applicable to the site, and there is no repetition. I see sites do this to attract visitors searching for those key terms, but these types of actions do not seem to fit “keyword stuffing” as described in the Google Webmaster Guidelines.

    I want to represent myself in the most ethical and web friendly way possible. Let’s keep the internet free of junk and spam as much as possible. Good job Matt.

  255. Well the site looks far from professional and I wouldn’t trust this person as far as I could throw them. It’s a good thing google banned him, there are too many rogues out there these days… but now back to research of choosing unrelated but popular keywords for my website…

  256. I think that keyword stuffing is on the rise again. Google is not doing the best job at keeping those sites at bay right now. It is discouraging for the rest of us who are trying to use white hat methods.

    I’ve seen highly ranked websites stuffing their meta tags with keywords, and they appear in page 1. I also think that doorway linking is still working for these guys.

  257. Any tool to find out if you are stuffing keywords?

  258. Me too, I alway go on Google Friendly Way. After some months, I got many benefits. Thanks Google & Matt Cuts

  259. LOL @ tupac. Thanks for teaching me the real meaning of keyword stuffing!

  260. Keyword stuffing doesn’t work because when the Google or any search engine crawles to your site, its algorithm can quickly determine if keywords are used an irregular numbers of times. If your site contains an unnaturally high density of one single keyword, your site will actually come down in the rankings except than up. In other ways, your site could be removed or banned from the search engine indexes completely.

  261. I found this while searching the term keyword stuffing ban. Very informative by the way. I will refrain from making 1 pixel text. I went to his site, I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact he is a little off his rocker.

  262. Nice lesson about keyword stuffing. On my first year in blogging, i do admit that i spam keywords in my Titles and within the content. After reading more about SEO that will last forever, I knew then that spamming or stuffing keywords will harm your site in the long run.

  263. I don’t think google is playing a fair game. Today when I checked keywords related to mobile phone handset with deals word. I got only one site on for every popular handset and I found that site is not following google webmaster guidelines. Google everytime asks affiliates site to add some worth but if I see that site complete page full of affiliate links and very less content. I can understand it can come for few keywords becoz they are also working hard but how it can be possible that they can come on top every keyword.

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