Keyword Density: What is Keyword Density and Keyword Weight

Today's article in SEO training is how to measure and calculate the keyword density on a page. Lets do it here:

Perhaps the simplest thing search engines look for is how many of the terms in the search query are actually found on the page. All other things being equal, pages that have more of the terms to the query (some search engines require all of the important terms) tend to rank higher.

However, it is more than mere term occurrence. It is more than just having all the terms of a particular query on your page. Keyword density also known as keyword weight, is critical. In the old days of search, the more frequently the terms occurred on the page, the better. A page with a term frequency of ten occurrences for the word glaucoma was considered better than on with two when that is what a searcher is looking for.

But the advent of Web search drove people to look for quick fixes in search rankings, and they started littering pages with words. (If 10 occurrences were good, why not 50?). So search engines have cracked down on keyword density. Now they look for particular keyword density on a page and have decided that pages with around 7 percent of the words matching query (7 percent keyword density) are good matches.

Most search queries, however, have more than one word. So search engines look at frequency even more deeply. That is why a query for glaucoma eye treatment might look for pages with heavier densities of glaucoma and treatment rather than eye. Search engines can make these decisions based on frequencies of occurrence of a word throughout the entire web. So, because engine knows the word eye is much more common than glaucoma. The word glaucoma is a better differentiator for which pages best match the query. Similarly, pages that mention glaucoma frequently along with treatment are probably better than pages that mention treatment frequently alongwith one assurance the world glaucoma.

However, there is even more to it than that. If you think about it the best possible pages might have the words glaucoma and treatment right next to each other. So pages that have higher keyword proximity (the terms are closer together) are often better than those that contain the terms separated by a few words, or worse, a few paragraphs. Web search engines work hard to find as many of the terms in the query of as possible, with as many assurance on the page as possible (upto the magical 7 percent threshold) as close to each other as possible. As you might imagine, it is critical for you, the search marketer, right your pages using these keywords and phrases.