Do you ever try to hide your keywords?

[AceMaster]

Knowing how easy it is to see what keywords people target, I wonder if anyone has keyword strategies that try to hide the words. IE. not including them in the description or meta tags and going easy on them in the site, then using other ways to target them.

[kingcobra]

I tried that years ago when the thing was in vogue but Google soon caught on and issued a severe penalty for it. Oddly enough though that was the only time I got any traffic from msn search, I think they like hard core spam SEO or at least did then

Seriously though I don't think there's a search engine around nowadays that this wouldn't get you delisted for. I've played around though with things like loading up the HTML comments but that didn't help or hurt. The rule is that if it could help you you will get punished.

[2pair]

Originally Posted by kingcobra

The rule is that if it could help you you will get punished.

True story. If you were running a search engine, wouldn't you do the same though?

[TheOPC]

keywords metatags are mainly used now because they're "supposed to be there." Most often, the keywords targeted are contained in some form within a smart combo of the headings, the title, and the text - as well as within the alt tags of a page's composition.

More often than not, the keywords one actually is in pursuit of is not contained in the meta

[kingcobra]

Originally Posted by 2pair

True story. If you were running a search engine, wouldn't you do the same though?

Well yeah, keep in mind though that I was talking about the blackest of hat tactics like hiding keywords and links and no search engine would want that. There was a time though where you could get away with some real hard core spamming techniques with the other engines, probably still can but Google's always been pretty tight with that stuff in terms of running you out of town for it.

[2pair]

Originally Posted by kingcobra

Well yeah, keep in mind though that I was talking about the blackest of hat tactics like hiding keywords and links and no search engine would want that. There was a time though where you could get away with some real hard core spamming techniques with the other engines, probably still can but Google's always been pretty tight with that stuff in terms of running you out of town for it.

Oh Google. You so crazy.