Google: Sometimes Over Optimization Drift Towards SEO Spam

Dec 10, 2024 - 7:41 am 5 by

Google Drift

Google's John Mueller was asked about over-optimization and if that can cause issues for ranking in Google Search. John replied saying, "Sometimes "over optimization" does drift towards "SEO-spam"."

This came up on Bluesky where the question was from ‪Martin SEO McGarry‬ who asked:

Has Google recently targeted "over optimisation" Or is this hidden gems theory, easily confused?

Example

A long page with lots of detail, very natural, but unfortunately repetitive.

Suddenly outranked by a demo page (left in the system) with no content but similar meta title.

John Mueller's full reply was:

It sounds like you have a specific situation in front of you, so generalizing probably doesn't help much. Sometimes "over optimization" does drift towards "SEO-spam" (say you mention the keywords 1x, 10x, or 1000x on a page). My guess is you're just seeing something coincidental here though.

The follow up asked:

It could easily look like spam (evident in more RECENT pogo rankings, flip flopping with other less keyword dense pages)... we can't get away from the repetitions TBH. Its a regulatory issue, hosting 3rd party Tc & Cs on a list page for example and they're pretty much full of the same phrases.

John replied:

I don't know your pages, it's just that there's sometimes no clear border between "unoptimized", "optimized", "over-optimized", and spam (though often spam is obvious in isolation). (Also, what is even "unoptimized" vs "optimized"? :-))

Over-optimization is a topic we covered here countless times - so add it to the bundle.

Forum discussion at Bluesky.

 

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