Keywords that do count
So where on your Web page do the search engines look for matches to the visitor's search criteria? The answer is: throughout the rest of the head and body of the Web page. But that doesn't mean that the location of the keyword on the Web page doesn't make any difference. In fact, the keyword location matters a lot.
Most search engines give a keyword more or less weight based on its location. The weighting algorithms vary at different search engines, and the details of those algorithms are closely guarded secrets. The following list puts the possible keyword locations in approximate order from highest to lowest priority.
- Domain name
- Page title
- Headings (enclosed within h1, h2, h3 tags)
- Body text -- The first 2 to 3 KB usually counts more than the rest of the text (if the search engine scans more than that).
- Meta tags -- Keywords appearing in the description meta tag still seem to count, as do keywords in some of the Dublin Core meta tags. Some search engines don't ignore the keyword meta tag completely but, rather, discount it heavily -- especially if the keyword doesn't appear elsewhere on the page.
- Links -- Even keywords buried in the URL, name, or id attributes of a link count in page ranking
- Alt text -- Keywords in alt text attributes count toward page ranking. This is yet another reason to take the time to create meaningful alt text for all images.
Keyword repetition is another important factor in page ranking. A page that contains multiple instances of the keyword will generally rank higher than a page on which the keyword appears only once. However, the interaction of keyword placement and repetition is one of the areas where it's almost impossible to second-guess the ranking algorithms.
