2 replies to this topic

[Ian]

Would it be possible to increase the display length of keyword fields on the 'Manager - Configuration - Keywords page' and the 'Edit page - Publishing - Keywords list'?

On some sites I am targeting 3 and 4 word keyword phrases for SEO on certain pages. Some of the phrases, especially the 4 word phrases, use the same phrase with only the last word being changed. It is very difficult to see which one to add from the list on page edit or to edit on the keyword edit page when the full keyword phrase is not displayed.

Thanks

Ian

[Ralph]

Hmmm... From the reading I've been doing, most search engines only store keywords, not keyword phrases, by breaking the string at white space characters or non-alphanumerics... Based on that concept it sounds like you'd be wasting precious keyword space by re-using a specific word, considering how some some search engines only read X number of keyword characters... I've optimized several sites keyword meta tags by removing all duplicate words and eliminating un-needed white space by placing just a comma between words, without a space... None of these sites have suffered any drop in ranking due the optimizations and a couple have actually had rankings improve...

But... Sure, now would be the time to make adjustments to the select box... I just made a minor change on that panel last night of date/time display... I'd really like to go with a checkbox list but we'd probably have to go with a whole new tab panel for that... That would allow the use of floated keywords so width wouldn't be an issue it it was set extra wide...

[Ian]

Hmmm... From the reading I've been doing, most search engines only store keywords, not keyword phrases, by breaking the string at white space characters or non-alphanumerics... Based on that concept it sounds like you'd be wasting precious keyword space by re-using a specific word, considering how some some search engines only read X number of keyword characters... I've optimized several sites keyword meta tags by removing all duplicate words and eliminating un-needed white space by placing just a comma between words, without a space... None of these sites have suffered any drop in ranking due the optimizations and a couple have actually had rankings improve...

But... Sure, now would be the time to make adjustments to the select box... I just made a minor change on that panel last night of date/time display... I'd really like to go with a checkbox list but we'd probably have to go with a whole new tab panel for that... That would allow the use of floated keywords so width wouldn't be an issue it it was set extra wide...

I think it's one of those points where opinion varies between sources. From experience, I've found that using a keyword phrase is far more effective than entering individual keywords. For instance, on one site the keywords to be targeted for a page where 'taekwondo' and 'grading' and 'syllabus.' Entering as individual keywords, the page received a ranked position, but after analysis of search phrases used to access the site I changed it to a phrase and the ranking postition improved quite considerably.

The idea of a checkbox list sound good as a future improvement.

Ian